Brutal sex attack forces Italy to make laws for kicking out EU migrants

Italy yesterday brought in a law making it easier to expel 'undesirables' from other EU countries.

The move came amid outrage over the sex attack murder of an admiral's wife by a Romanian migrant.

Previously, EU citizens could only be sent home if they could be shown to pose a threat to the state, usually interpreted as a terrorist.

Now they can be kicked out if they are 'a threat to society', which allows more scope.

The change, and fears of a backlash over the murder, led to an immediate exodus of Romanians by bus.

The ruling was rushed through after RE teacher Giovanna Reggiani, 47, was beaten with a rock in a sex attack by a Romanian migrant and her body dumped in a ditch. She died two days after the attack in a suburb of northern Rome.

Nicolae Mailat, 24, from Transylvania, was arrested in his ramshackle hovel at a nearby gipsy camp a short while later.

He had two previous convictions for theft in his home country.

The new Italian law has echoes of the legal turmoil in Britain over Italian-born Learco Chindamo, the murderer of headmaster Stephen Lawrence.

The government wanted to expel him at the end of his sentence, but were refused by a High Court judge who said that would infringe EU law. Experts say this may not be the case now.

But Chindamo would also be protected by the Human Rights Act, which protects the right to family life as he has spent most of his life in Britain.

Italy argues this does not apply to its law as it is aimed at recently-arrived migrants.

Before the new laws, Italian expulsion orders were lengthy and complicated. Now any EU citizen who has a conviction, or was under investigation, or was otherwise deemed a threat to society, could be held.

Each case would then go before a magistrate who would make a decision on expulsion within 48 hours. There is no appeal.

Officials in Brussels said Italy appeared to be working within the directive of EU legislation which states that: "The personal conduct of the individual concerned must represent a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat affecting one of the fundamental interests of society."

Romanians have been blamed for 76 murders in the last 18 months, half of all rapes and a surge in people trafficking and prostitution.

At the same time, crime in Romania has fallen by 26 per cent.

Yesterday, camps and ramshackle homes were dismantled by masked police using tractors.

Dozens of Romanians were rounded up.

Many others headed home on buses. One woman burst into tears at Rome's bus station and said: "I've just spent 60 euros on a one-way ticket. We can't stay here. Everyone hated us before, now we are hated even more."

8 people have commented on this story so far. Tell us what you think below.

Won't happen in this country we have the human rights act, we can't even get rid of dangerous terrorists, compliments of our wonderful government.

- The Runes, Leeds

Although the free movement of EU citizens within the 27 member nations is a cornerstone of EU policy, countries still have the right to keep certain people out if they are deemed dangerous.

Should read:
Although the free movement of EU citizens within the 27 member nations is a cornerstone of EU policy, countries (except the UK) still have the right to keep certain people out if they are deemed dangerous.

- Andy, Barnsley

The Italians should send him here. We will have him, no problem.

- John Reed, Wolverhampton, England

'prompted Italy to order the expulsion of any European Union citizen deemed dangerous'.

Now if they can do it why can't we...because our lilly livered government does not want a 'human rights' backlash.

- Mickey V, Manchester, UK

So how come Italy can deport EU citizens and the UK can't? For example, Learco Chindamo who is deemed to be a threat to the safety of UK citizens but is still allowed to stay here, no doubt at the taxpayers' expense.

- Robert, Luton

Good for them. Stick up for, and protect your country's citizens first and foremost for their loyalties over the past 1500 years.

- James Mills, Nottingham

It's funny that our country bends over backwards to state that it would be against their human rights to chuck them out and that the European Human Rights is for the foreign criminal in Britain but it doesn't seem to apply anywhere else in so called Europe.

- Sk, Carlisle, Cumbria

We deserve an answer to the following question:

If Italy can deport undesirable EU citizens that it does not want, why can't Great Britain?

- Peter Pan, Great Britain

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