AVELLINO — The Naples Court of Appeal has acquitted a man from Avellino in his sixties of mistreatment against his wife, ruling "because the fact does not exist."
The decision was issued by the Sixth Criminal Section, which reformed the first-instance judgment. That earlier ruling had acquitted the defendant of stalking, while the mistreatment charge had been dismissed as time-barred.
On appeal, the prosecution had sought a conviction. The appellate judges rejected that request and acquitted the man of mistreating his wife through June 2014.
According to the report, the allegations concerned insults, the removal of the wife's phone, and her subsequent move with the children to her parents' home. The appellate court did not consider the accusation sufficiently reliable.
The identities of the defendant and his wife were not disclosed. The written reasons for the appellate judgment were still pending when the report was published, and no detailed account of the evidentiary assessment was provided.
