A five-year-old boy was allegedly beaten and whipped on the back and legs for his 'naughty acts'.
This is what emerged from an investigation by the Catania Prosecutor's Office which led to the arrest of the child's 28-year-old mother and a 23-year-old 'aunt', both Nigerian.
The provision, which has already been validated by the investigating judge who issued a precautionary custody order for the two women, was carried out by the Flying Squad of the Police Headquarters.
The alleged crimes are for mistreatment and multi-aggravated personal injury.
The police investigations were started after the complaint from the director of the school attended by the child.
The investigations, coordinated by the District Prosecutor's Office of Catania and carried out by the Crimes against the Person section of the Flying Squad of the Police Headquarters - we read in a note -, have made it possible to "acquire, in the state of the documents, elements which would demonstrate how the non-EU citizens stopped they would be the authors of very serious illicit conduct perpetrated against a minor of just 5 years of age".
The investigations were started after a report to the operations room of the Catania Police Headquarters on 14 February by the head teacher of an institute in the Etna capital who spoke of a "5-year-old child with obvious lashes on his back and legs".
The minor, immediately identified, reconstructs the Prosecutor's Office, "showed incontrovertible signs of repeated violence".
The child was transported to the pediatric emergency room of the Garibaldi-Nesima hospital in Catania and received the appropriate treatment, with a prognosis of 15 days, with the doctors finding "the presence of numerous deep 'U'-shaped abrasions, likely whippings."
From the Police investigations, reconstructs the Prosecutor's Office, it "emerged that an alarming picture from which it could be deduced that the signs of violence imprinted on the child's body would have been inflicted by the twenty-three-year-old suspect with electric cables and this following banal whims and not better specify pranks attributed to the minor".
The abuse of the 'aunt', who in reality had no family ties with the child, would also have taken place in the presence of the mother who "did not do anything to avoid it, to prevent it or to report it to the relevant institutional bodies in order to avoid any possible recurrence" .
After being arrested by Flying Squad personnel, the two women were taken to the prison in Catania.
The investigating judge, accepting the request of the Prosecutor's Office, validated the provision applied to the precautionary measure of custody in prison.
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