Children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov on Monday appealed to the Foreign Ministry to help a 17-year-old Russian girl studying on an exchange program in Italy who says five locals raped her on the way home from a night out.
Astakhov wrote on Twitter that he was following the investigation closely and that he would run a check into the actions of the foundation that organized the student program.
The girl, identified in news reports as Angelina, says her assailants raped her in a forest after offering her and a friend a lift home from a nightclub in the small town of Acquapendente, where both were visiting students, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported.
It was not immediately clear when the crime was meant to have taken place, but doctors later confirmed that Angelina had been raped, Interfax reported.
Regional police have arrested five suspects in the case, local news site Viterbo24 reported. All the suspects, who are aged between 20 and 22, deny their guilt.
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