Courageous Claudia Fights Back

Dozens of partisan supporters stormed out of the agitated Rome courtroom past tense police bailiffs with shouts of "Phony justice" and "Basta! Enough of violence against the bodies of women." Outside, more than 2,000 militant feminists crying "Viva Claudia!" and "Claudia is not afraid!" marched defiantly past riot police and raised their hands in a triangular sign denoting the womb. The gesture has become a feminist symbol of solidarity.

All the tumult in Rome concerned the tangled case of Claudia Caputi, 18, victim of a brutal gang rape last August, who has become a feminist heroine. In Italy's male-dominated Mediterranean culture, rape has usually been regarded as a shameful family secret, infrequently reported and rarely prosecuted. In fact, Italian courts often absolved the rapist if the girl agreed to marry him. In recent years the number of reported rapes has been on the decline--partly, experts theorize, as a result of increased sexual freedom among young people. But Rome has recently been shocked by a rash of vicious gang rapes like the one involving Claudia Caputi.

The daughter of a bricklayer in the Abruzzi village of Villalago (pop. 900), Claudia had come to Rome last year to work as an au pair. One sultry summer evening she was out for a walk with a teen-age youth when she was chased down by a gang of about 17 young men who threatened her with a club and raped her. Before she was taken to the hospital, Claudia was able to point out some of her assailants to police. They arrested seven neighborhood toughs, aged 17 to 20, including her companion who had joined in the attack.

Sexist Conspiracy. Claudia defied tradition by pressing charges and demanding a rare public trial. Feminists promptly took up Claudia's case and Attorney Tina Lagostena Bassi agreed to represent her. Said Claudia: "Le femministe, they're the ones who have given me the strength to fight." When the trial opened, Claudia burst into tears at the sight of the seven sullen youths in the dock. She testified that she had received threats warning her not to press the case. Five days later, she was found lying semiconscious by a roadside on the outskirts of Rome. She told police she had been abducted, raped and repeatedly slashed with a razor blade in reprisal for her testimony. Her assailants, she charged, included three youths who had been involved in the first rape but not arrested.

When Prosecutor Paolino Dell'Anno questioned Claudia's version of the second attack, outraged feminists charged that there was a "sexist conspiracy" against her. In her hospital room, where feminists took up a round-the-clock vigil, Claudia denounced the suggestion that she might have imagined or staged the second rape.

"Madonna mia!" she cried.

"How could they even think such a thing? As though I have nothing better to do than to cut myself up." Medical examiners tended to support her story, saying that the cuts could not have been self-inflicted.

At week's end all seven defendants were found guilty.

Three received prison sentences of three to four years; the other four received suspended sentences. In addition, the court awarded Claudia token damages of $3,300, pending a civil suit that will determine the final award. Before the defendants were ushered out of the courtroom, Judge Mario Lupi issued a final admonition: "To those of you who will now go free, I want to say this: remember that the feminine world, so proximately and dangerously attractive, is also the world of your mothers and sisters and must have all your respect. Therefore I never want to see you here again." Claudia herself was still in the hospital, but her attorneys expressed satisfaction with the verdict.

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