An Italian appeals court — a panel of three female jurists — acquitted two men of rape in 2017, in part because the judges agreed with the defendant’s argument that the victim looked like a man, and therefore they could not have been attracted to her. Now that ruling has been overturned and a retrial has been ordered.
The reasoning behind the appeals court's ruling, revealed Friday through the Italian Supreme Court's retrial order, triggered outrage over the weekend. Hundreds of people on Monday protested outside the appeals court in Ancona, the city of 100,000 on Italy's Adriatic coast, where the alleged rape occurred.