Mailat admits he committed robbery The Italian judge who questioned yesterday Nicolae Romulus Mailat, the Romanian accused of having killed Italian women Giovanna Reggiani in Rome, signed the warrant for attempt to murder, sexual aggression and theft. The questioning started yesterday morning. Judge Claudio Mattinoli and prosecutor Maria Bice Barborini were there. Mailat was assisted by lawyer Piero Piccinni and he admitted he had robbed the victim. As for the other accusations, he denied them. Yesterday he was isolated in the prison house Regina Coeli, Rome, lest other prisoners should aggress him. Doubts mount Romulus Mailat's rape of Giovanna Reggiani may be just exaggeration by the Italian press, since the victim was found dressed. But this is to be decided on after the necropsy is performed. Marian Mandroc, Romania's domestic affairs attache to Italy, said it yesterday. He mentioned: "A Romanian woman saw Mailat bent over the victim and she stopped a microbus passing by. The driver saw the same. Still the woman said the victim was wearing buttoned pants, but one of her shoes was missing. It makes us think the rape so much talked about didn't occur and it was just exaggeration from the press." According to the same official the final official results will be announced after the necropsy is performed. The officer says the eyewitness is now a beneficiary of protection and kept in a secret location, about 30 kilometers away from Rome, for she was threatened to be killed. Marian Mandroc also claimed that the aggressor had tried to run away when the woman and the driver saw him, and then he had headed a booth to try and change his clothes. The Romanian officer explained: "When the authorities arrived he had changed his pants only. The shirt and the socks were stained with the victim's blood and in the booth there was found the woman's purse with her personal belongings." He reminded two Romanian policemen were working on the case and two more were in a police station in Rome fighting against organized crime groups. Two more, he added, were participating at operations of "evacuating" the Roma-origin Romanian camps in the outskirts of Rome.

Bogdan GALCA