Italy: Boy of 13 Sets Sleeping Man Alight and Cannot Be Prosecuted
October 19, 2026 · Frisian News
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
A 13-year-old of Tunisian origin in Sanremo poured petrol on a sleeping homeless man's legs and ignited it to steal his backpack. Italian law sets the criminal floor at 14, so no prosecution is possible.
Thirteen. That is the age of the boy who, on the night of 7 to 8 October 2026, filled a bottle with petrol at a pump in Sanremo, approached a sleeping homeless man at Piazzale Vesco in the Porto Vecchio area, poured the fuel on his legs, and ignited it with a match. The goal, according to Remix News and Adnkronos, was to steal the man's backpack.
The victim, described by Adnkronos as a foreign man of approximately 40 years old, sustained burns to his legs. He spent two days at Borea Hospital in Sanremo before being discharged, Adnkronos reported. His screams alerted Coast Guard personnel at the port. Carabinieri and emergency medical services also responded.
The boy, of Tunisian origin, fled after the attack. Surveillance cameras operated by the port authority and the Municipality of Sanremo captured the sequence of events. Investigators identified the boy from the footage and located him at a community facility where he lives with his mother, Remix News reported. He had prior contact with authorities in Sanremo, though details remain limited because the case falls under juvenile proceedings.
He cannot be prosecuted. Italian law imposes an absolute presumption of non-imputability on anyone under 14. The severity of the act is irrelevant. The juvenile prosecutor's office in Genoa is handling the matter and can consider protective or rehabilitative measures, but criminal punishment is not available as a tool.
The Meloni government is trying to change the law above that line, not below it. The Council of Ministers has approved draft legislation that would automatically hold children aged 14 and over criminally responsible, reversing the current case-by-case assessment, according to the Sri Lanka Guardian. Meloni said: "Those who make mistakes must answer for their own actions. Even when they are minors." A 13-year-old sits outside even that revised threshold.
The research centre Transcrime, in a June 2024 study based on data from Milan's Juvenile Social Service Office, found that the average age of first offence among young people in Italy is falling, with more than half of all juvenile offences now committed before the age of 15. Crime numbers are not rising, Transcrime found, but the violence within those numbers is.
The aggregate figures support that reading. Save the Children, cited in the Sri Lanka Guardian's reporting on the draft law, found that 3,968 minors were arrested for theft in Italy in 2024, more than double the figure from 2014. Arrests for assault reached 4,653, almost twice the level of a decade earlier. Arrests linked to fighting have increased by almost 100 per cent over the past five years.
A statutory floor written for one demographic reality does not automatically fit another.
Published October 19, 2026 · Frisian News