Subway rape case concluded

The saga of a man originally charged with the rape and illegal arrest of a 55-year-old woman in a Floriana subway, came to an end yesterday with a two-month jail term suspended for a year for the illegal possession of an air pistol.

The man was sentenced after he filed a guilty plea to the peripheral charge tagged on to the four which included the rape and the illegal arrest.

The other four were dropped by the Attorney General on Monday who asked the Magistrates' Court to proceed only on the weapons charge.

The judgment was handed down in open court after Magistrate Lawrence Quintano lifted the ban on publication limitedly for sentencing.

In passing judgment, he noted that the minimum punishment was two months in jail and the maximum, two years and that he was precluded from going below the minimum punishment prescribed by law.

He noted that the man's criminal record had not been exhibited in court and was thus to be taken to be clean, that the man had filed a guilty plea at an early stage of the proceedings and that the case could have caused him distress.

This led Dr Quintano to impose the minimum punishment prescribed by law, a two-month jail term, which he suspended for a year.

The air pistol will be confiscated.