A Milan teacher was found guilty Tuesday of cutting the tongue of one of her pupils with a pair of scissors.
The 23-year-old substitute teacher, who was sacked after last February's incident, was given a two-month suspended sentence and ordered to pay compensation.
The sum will be set at a future civil trial.
Prosecutor Marco Ghezzi said he was ''shocked'' by the lenience of the sentence and would probably appeal.
A lawyer for the boy's family called the verdict ''fair'' and voiced ''sympathy'' with the teacher because ''you shouldn't throw a 20-year-old girl into such a tough situation, expecting her to cope with a whole class''.
The teacher's lawyer said his client had ''already suffered enough, kicked out and treated as if she were a leper''.
The woman, identified by her initials, R.S., was charged with causing ''deliberate bodily harm'' after a test established that a deep cut in the pupil's tongue could only have been caused by squeezing the scissors tight.
But the judge found her guilty of a lesser count, ruling she had injured the boy more than she had intended.
The February 20 incident in a second-grade classroom in Milan gained front-page headlines and shocked the nation.
Television news reports showed the stitched-up tongue of seven-year-old 'Ahmed', the son of Tunisian immigrants.
The teacher, who was on her first assignment, admitted cutting the child's tongue but said it was an accident.
The teacher said she had ''jokingly'' threatened to cut the ''unruly'' child's tongue and was mimicking the action with a pair of scissors when the pupil made an unexpected move and cut his tongue on the scissors.
The child was rushed to hospital where he received five stitches to close the wound.
