An Italian court of appeal has shown some humanity and declared that people who steal food in order to stave off hunger should not be considered as having committed a crime. Italy’s highest court of appeal ruled that people who are hungry in Italy have a fundamental right to access food – even if that means they steal it. Judges overturned a theft conviction against homeless man Roman Ostriakov, who had been prosecuted for stealing cheese and sausages worth €4.07 from a supermarket in 2015. BBC News reports: Mr Ostriakov, a homeless man of Ukrainian background, had taken the food “in the face of the immediate and essential need for nourishment”, the court of cassation decided. Therefore it was not a crime, it said. A fellow customer informed the store’s security in 2011, when Mr Ostriakov attempted to leave a Genoa supermarket with two pieces of cheese and a packet of sausages in his pocket but paid only for breadsticks. In 2015, Mr Ostriakov was convicted of theft and sentenced to six months in jail and a €100 fine. ‘Right and pertinent’ ruling, say papers For the judges, the “right to survival prevails over property”, said an op-ed in La Stampa newspaper (in [...]
