"I screamed and tried to block the cars that were passing by, but nothing. No one helped me. The indifference of the people really hurt me."

The woman attacked and raped in recent days in an underpass in Rome, in the Porta Pia area, by a homeless man of Moroccan origins speaks out. "I am relieved," she tells Il Messaggero, "to know that he is in prison because no one else should suffer the atrocity that I experienced: an hour in the dark, in the hell of my tormentor ."

Then she recalls what happened that night: "After spending an evening with friends, I was walking to Termini station to catch the bus that would take me home when I felt a person block me from behind. He hugged me tightly with his arm and took me into the underpass ."

"It was all dark," he continues, " I was on the ground and I felt that there were some blankets and duvets underneath me. It was all black. It was all so traumatic that I can't even say how long I spent in that terrible place. About an hour I think, but it seemed like an eternity. I was afraid I was going to die."

The alarm was raised around 6 am when the woman herself contacted 112. The 42-year-old was rescued in Piazza della Croce Rossa, in the Porta Pia area, with swelling on her face and arms. Then the dramatic story.

(Unioneonline/D)