He had been sentenced to six years because when he was 25, on an Intercity train from Genoa to Milan, he and two friends locked a girl in a compartment and abused her, preventing her from escaping.

The proceedings that had convicted the man - a Czech man who is now 43 years old and untraceable - first in Pavia, then on appeal in Milan, according to what was reported today by La Stampa, were deemed by the Milanese judges to be flawed by "absolute nullity".

The facts: the alleged gang rape dates back to October 2007. During the first-degree trial and the appeal trial he was declared "free and absent". And instead he was in Cagliari, in prison serving another sentence. He was convicted and arrested in 2022, five years after the sentence became final and 15 years after that train trip. The problem is that he never knew he was being investigated for that episode, so four months after the arrest he was released due to failure to notify the documents.

Thus, all sentences become null and void, including the one that became irrevocable. The judges, accepting the appeal of the lawyers Alberto Pantosti Bruni and Simone Malfatto, established that "the failure to notify" the documents to the accused determined "the violation of the right to be informed of the reasons for the accusation and the right of defense".

"He never knew he was a defendant," the Court emphasizes, recalling that it was not even possible to verify whether the defendant had been informed of being such. On October 4, 2022, the Court of Pavia declared that "the file was not found, as it was destroyed following a leak of sewage in the archive." Eighteen years after the fact, if a new trial is held, it will start from scratch. "The decision of the Court of Appeal," remarks lawyer Pantosti Bruni, "forcefully reminds us that the right to defense must be recognized to all those who are subjected to criminal proceedings. Regardless of the seriousness of the crime charged and any other consideration."