Italy arrests Ecuadorean taxi driver for Erasmus student rape

Italian police have arrested an Ecuadorean man accused of raping a Belgian student after picking her up in his unlicensed taxi in Milan, media reports said Saturday.

The 35-year-old man, known only as Manuel A., was arrested by police late Friday and charged with raping the 22-year-old architecture student after a DNA test proved a positive match with traces of saliva the attacker left on her body.

The woman told police she had been out at a bar with friends in January when she had felt ill and left to go home alone.

Unable to find a licensed taxi she accepted the Ecuadorean’s offer of a discount fare and he drove her into an unlit street and raped her, before stealing her phone, which police later recovered in his apartment.

Manuel A., who has a wife and three children, was known in the area for soliciting students on the EU’s student exchange programme Erasmus with cheap deals and police suspect he may have abused other women, the reports said.