Law and order has shot to the forefront of election issues in the upcoming race for Rome mayor following a brutal sex attack in the city.
The victim, a 31-year-old woman from the African state of Lesotho who is studying in Rome, was knifed and raped last Thursday night at a railway station on the outskirts of Rome.
Her aggressor has been named as Joan Rus, a 37-year-old Romanian who was living in an illegal encampment near the station.
Police say Rus grabbed his victim as she exited the station of La Storta on her way back from lessons at Rome university.
He dragged her towards some nearby fields and knifed her in the stomach when she tried to break free. He then raped her.
Two passersby saw Rus pulling his struggling victim along and immediately called the police.
The police are believed to have caught Rus in the act of raping the woman.
She is now recovering in a Rome hospital while Rus is in prison.
Police said he entered Italy in January, when Romania joined the European Union, and although he had no police record in Italy, he had been jailed three times in Romania for burglary and theft.
Parallels were immediately drawn with a savage murder at the end of October which horrified the nation and led to the expulsion of dozens of Romanians considered a threat to public order.
In that case, a 47-year-old Italian woman was beaten, raped, robbed and then left to die by a 24-year-old Romanian gypsy in an early evening attack outside another railway station very near to La Storta.
The woman died after spending two days in a coma.
The government subsequently passed an emergency decree allowing the police to summarily expel dangerous EU citizens and launched a crackdown on illegal Roma campsites in Rome. Both moves met with protests from the Romanian government, which warned Italy not to discriminate against its citizens.
The latest incident led to renewed criticism by the centre right of Rome's outgoing centre-left administration, accused of not doing enough to boost law and order amid rising crime rates.
Centre-right candidate for Rome mayor Giovanni Alemanno, who faces off against outgoing culture minister Francesco Rutelli in the Sunday-Monday run-off election, said that ''the attack at La Storta station re-focuses attention on the issue of safety in the capital, which has been ignored by the centre-left council''.
He promised to improve safety by putting more police on the streets, cracking down on illegal immigrants and illegal Roma settlements and improving conditions at outlying train stations.
Rutelli also pledged to boost city safety with more police, a ''radical reorganisation'' of Roma camps and even the distribution of electronic alarm bracelets for women that they could use in case of danger.
At the same time he defended the centre-left council's record on crime.
''The problem of immigrants who commit crimes is unfortunately tied to a small but very aggressive minority of citizens who have arrived in the last year and a half, above all from Romania,'' said Rutelli, who served two terms as Rome mayor before returning to national politics.
According to city council statistics released after last October's murder case, Romanians accounted for 75% of the city's arrests on serious charges from January to September 2007.
LEAGUE CALLS FOR TOUGH ACTION.
The Northern League, a populist party and key ally of incoming centre-right premier Silvio Berlusconi, called for immediate action to bring down crime levels.
The League, which is frequently criticised as anti-immigrant, is pushing for three top posts in the next government including the interior portfolio in a bid to strengthen its hand on domestic security policy.
''The problem of law and order is an urgent one and must be tackled immediately. Each day that measures are delayed means more victims of crimes which could have been avoided,'' said Roberto Calderoli, a top League member and former minister who is tipped to become deputy premier.
Another League heavyweight Roberto Maroni, who the League wants to become Italy's next interior minister, said that ''citizen safety is a priority of the State and if we can't provide it, there's no point being in government''.
''We need a tougher line on illegal immigration and more police,'' said Maroni, who also expressed approval of the idea of citizens' defence groups to help prevent neighbourhood crime.
He also said that Romanian immigrants needed particular attention.
Romanians have flowed into Italy since Bucharest joined the EU in January and they now make up the biggest foreign community here.
