Milanese authorities have arrested one Egyptian national and are on the lookout for nine other men of North African origin in connection with the gang rape of a 19-year-old student who was partying at a nightclub with her boyfriend on the weekend.
The brutal attack occurred outside the Alcatraz club in the northern Italian city in the early hours of Saturday morning at around 4 a.m.
Il Giornale reported the victim and her boyfriend had stepped outside the club and stopped near a supermarket parking lot when they were accosted by a gang of 10 people whom the teen believes to have been of “North African origin.”
The gang initially sought to steal her boyfriend’s mobile phone and wallet, but when he resisted they targeted the young female and grabbed her purse. When she fought back, the assailants surrounded her and she was reportedly raped.
The security team at the nearby nightclub heard her screaming and intervened before alerting the authorities. One of the men was apprehended by security and subsequently arrested upon arrival of the police. He has been identified as 36-year-old Egyptian national Hassan Mansour Hassan Mohamed.
The remaining nine assailants escaped, although a second man, a 20-year-old Egyptian national, was also later identified and he is under investigation.
The authorities are using the club’s CCTV footage to ascertain what happened and to try and identify the remaining attackers.
The incident follows a disturbing pattern of mass sexual harassment cases in Milan, including the recent New Year’s Eve attacks in Piazza Duomo, when multiple women were groped and assaulted by groups of foreign men. The scenes were reminiscent of those back in 2022 when nine women, including two German tourists, were targeted.
Describing her “night of terror,” Remix News reported on an interview given last week by a young Belgian woman who celebrated New Year’s Eve in the Italian city, only to be sexually assaulted by young Arabs.
Milanese authorities have arrested one Egyptian national and are on the lookout for nine other men of North African origin in connection with the gang rape of a 19-year-old student who was partying at a nightclub with her boyfriend on the weekend.
The brutal attack occurred outside the Alcatraz club in the northern Italian city in the early hours of Saturday morning at around 4 a.m.
Il Giornale reported the victim and her boyfriend had stepped outside the club and stopped near a supermarket parking lot when they were accosted by a gang of 10 people whom the teen believes to have been of “North African origin.”
The gang initially sought to steal her boyfriend’s mobile phone and wallet, but when he resisted they targeted the young female and grabbed her purse. When she fought back, the assailants surrounded her and she was reportedly raped.
The security team at the nearby nightclub heard her screaming and intervened before alerting the authorities. One of the men was apprehended by security and subsequently arrested upon arrival of the police. He has been identified as 36-year-old Egyptian national Hassan Mansour Hassan Mohamed.
The remaining nine assailants escaped, although a second man, a 20-year-old Egyptian national, was also later identified and he is under investigation.
The authorities are using the club’s CCTV footage to ascertain what happened and to try and identify the remaining attackers.
The incident follows a disturbing pattern of mass sexual harassment cases in Milan, including the recent New Year’s Eve attacks in Piazza Duomo, when multiple women were groped and assaulted by groups of foreign men. The scenes were reminiscent of those back in 2022 when nine women, including two German tourists, were targeted.
Describing her “night of terror,” Remix News reported on an interview given last week by a young Belgian woman who celebrated New Year’s Eve in the Italian city, only to be sexually assaulted by young Arabs.
“We were harassed there. They touched us over our clothes, but also underneath,” 21-year-old Laura told Belgian news site 7s7. “Three of us, including myself, were sexually assaulted. They put their hands in my underwear. It went way too far.”
The most recent assault has intensified political debate about crime and immigration in Milan, with Silvia Sardone, a Lega MEP and Milan city councilor, condemning the growing prevalence of sexual violence involving foreign criminals.
“This is yet another very serious episode in Milan after the collective harassment in the square on New Year’s Eve,” Sardone said. “Faced with this emergency, Mayor [Giuseppe] Sala responds by minimizing the facts, saying that we need to think. Yet we are faced with a vision of women, considered as objects to be abused, which is increasingly widespread among foreign criminals and in Islamic communities.”
Sardone also referenced a previous controversy involving Minister Giuseppe Valditara, who linked irregular immigration to rising sexual violence cases, citing interior ministry data. “The left called him racist, yet the reality speaks for itself: In Milan, over 62 percent of these crimes are committed by non-Italians,” she stated.
She accused left-wing politicians of double standards, saying: “For the left, if the attackers are foreigners, the crimes are treated as less serious. This is unacceptable reverse racism and an insult to the victims.”
Remix News has reported on several attacks by foreign men against young women in Milan. In June 2022, four teens from Milan and two from Pavia, all aged 16 to 17 years old, were sexually assaulted by a large group of North African migrant males while traveling on board the regional train from Peschiera del Garda.
In October 2023, Margherita De Pompeis, a 21-year-old influencer on TikTok from Italy, told the story of how she prevented an attack by two foreign men in the city.
In November last year, Milan’s left-wing mayor Giuseppe Sala accepted that the Italian city could no longer be considered a safe place to live.
“I won’t claim Milan is a safe city, but it is making an effort to address challenges faced by all international cities,” he said.