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Italian man jailed for five years for sex with minors in Indonesia

An elderly Italian man has been jailed for five years for having sex with four underage boys on the Indonesian resort island of Lombok, a court official said on Thursday.

Published: 7 September 2017 12:28 CEST

Italian man jailed for five years for sex with minors in Indonesia

An Indonesian officer removes the handcuffs off Italian Bruno Gallo (L) at a court in Mataram. Photo: Pikong/AFP

Bruno Gallo, 70, was found guilty of having sex with the minors, aged between 16 and 17 years old, by a judge in West Nusa Tenggara province on Wednesday.

The Italian, who has lived on the island for 20 years, is accused of luring the victims to his house with money and gifts, where they agreed to have sex with him.

Although consensual sex between gay couples is allowed in most Indonesian provinces, the age of consent is 18.

“He was sentenced to five years because we have underaged victims. What he committed violated the children's protection law,” Didiek Jatmiko, spokesman for Mataram district court, told AFP.

Gallo's lawyer Denny Nur Indra said his client would not file an appeal but claimed he did not know his actions were illegal.

“He admitted that he has a sexual disorder, he likes same-sex children, but he should have been treated,” Indra said.

Lombok and several other Indonesian islands, including Bali, have reputations as havens for foreign paedophiles and child sex networks.

Last year 70-year-old Australian paedophile Robert Andrew Fiddes Ellis was sentenced to 15 years in prison after a court found him found guilty of abusing 11 girls at his home in Bali.

Gallo was ordered to pay a 100 million rupiah ($7,500) fine or serve an additional three months in prison.

REVEALED: Where in Italy you're most likely to be a victim of crime

While Italy is among the safest countries in the world – it ranked 33rd out of 163 in the latest Global Peace Index report, right above the UK – crime is still a concern, especially in metropolitan cities and tourist hotspots.

According to the annual crime report from newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, which collated the most recent data from Italy’s Department of Public Security, Milan was the Italian city with the highest crime rate in 2023.

Overall, some 230,394 crimes were reported in the northern metropolis last year, which corresponded to 7,094 offences for every 100,000 residents.

Milan was followed by Italy’s capital, Rome, with 6,071 reported crimes for every 100,000 residents (up by nearly 600 compared to 2022) and Florence, with 6,053.

The top ten was completed by Rimini (6,002 reports for every 100,000 residents), Turin (5,685), Bologna (5,539), Prato (4,887), Imperia (4,838), Venice (4,825) and Livorno (4,743).

At the other end of the spectrum, Oristano, Sardinia, was the Italian city with the lowest crime rate in 2023 as it ‘only’ saw 1,511 offences for every 100,000 residents.

Oristano was followed by Potenza, Basilicata (1,934) and Treviso, Veneto (2,258).

Single-offence rankings

While the overall crime rate ranking provides a picture of Italy’s major crime hotspots, it doesn’t allow for any insight into the types of offences committed locally, which is why it is worth looking into single-offence rankings.

Milan, Rome and Rimini (a popular seaside resort on Emilia Romagna’s Adriatic coast) were the Italian cities with the highest theft rates in 2023, with the northern city registering nearly 3,900 reported thefts (furti) for every 100,000 residents and the capital stopping just shy of the 3,500 mark.

Milan was also Italy’s least-safe city when it came to petty theft and pickpocketing, with over 900 such offences reported for every 100,000 residents.

READ ALSO: How bad is pickpocketing in Italy’s major cities?

Florence was the Italian city with the highest robbery rate (rapine), with 136 offences for every 100,000 residents.

The Tuscan city was followed by Milan (128) and Prato (124).

Outside of big cities and popular tourist destinations, a number of smaller and, perhaps, slightly unassuming Italian cities had their own crime ‘specialisations’ in 2023.

For instance, Ragusa, Sicily, ranked first in vehicle theft, while Pisa, Tuscany, came in first in reported home burglary offences.

Trieste, Friuli Venezia Giulia, had the highest sexual assault rate (24 reports for every 100,000 residents) in the country, whereas Crotone ranked first for attempted murder.

READ ALSO: The 8 red flags to look out for to avoid rental scams in Italy

Turin came in first for cyber fraud and online scams, while Isernia, Molise, was Italy’s extortion capital.

National picture

At a national level, reported crimes were up by 3.8 percent compared to 2022, with online fraud and robbery registering 10.3- and 9.5-percent increases respectively.

Assault offences also registered a 3.1-percent year-on-year increase, while there were 341 murders in 2023 – up by 13 against 2019.

According to Marco Dugato, a researcher at the Crime Observatory of Milan’s Cattolica University, the latest increases “must be monitored, particularly for certain types of crime”.

In particular, “the rise of more impulsive, less planned, but more aggressive forms of criminal activity” such as assault and robbery “is of concern”.

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