ROME- After accepting to be walked home by a 22-year-old Bangladeshi, a Finnish tourist allegedly was brutalised, robbed and raped, between Friday night and Saturday morning, police said. The 20-year-old tourist, who had arrived in Rome from Finland only a few days previous to the incident, had been drinking with a friend at one of the many Roman bars.

 According to the young woman, the Bangladeshi man approached her and the friend she was with, and after a brief conversation, she accepted the man’s offer to walk her home. During the walk, the aggressor made a move on the tourist, who rejected him. After this rejection, he turned violent.

 Threatening her with a rock found nearby, the man dragged her behind a bus near the Roma Termini train station, robbed her of the €40 she had with her, and then raped her. A local resident, witnessing the happening from the window of her habitation, started screaming and called the police. By the time the law enforcement officers arrived, the Bangladeshi man had escaped, and all that could be done was succouring the victim, and commence the chase after the criminal. The criminal was later identified by the woman, and was arrested Saturday at the restaurant where he worked.

 The Finnish girl told the police officers that the Bangladeshi citizen, who sojourned in Rome with a visa for humanitarian reasons, threatened her with the words '‘If you try to move or flee, I will kill you.’'

 '‘I really feared for my life, it was horrible’', she later said. The abuse was caught on one of the train station's cameras.

 The politicisation of Friday night’s events was quick to come. Rome’s mayor, Virginia Raggi, declared in a tweet ‘‘I stand by the Finnish tourist assaulted near the Roma Termini train station. Rome does not accept any form of violence’’. In the meantime, the Roman attorney has confirmed the arrest, while the magistrates have formulated accusations for the crimes of rape and robbery. The suspect will be interrogated between Tuesday and Wednesday.

The happening caused the reaction of the Northern League’s secretary, Matteo Salving, who wrote on Facebook: ‘‘While wating to contribute to our pension system, ‘the poor refugee’ was busy raping. They are simply too many, and I’ll send home a number of them. We’re still waiting for Boldrini’s (President of the Italian chamber of Deputies) response… p.s. chemical castration, and that won’t happen again.’’

 jp-ag