Minister orders probe into freed child death suspect

Italy’s justice minister has ordered an investigation into why a man arrested over the abduction and killing of a toddler was not behind bars despite previous convictions in a rape and kidnapping case.

Italians were outraged to learn that Mario Alessi, who admitted involvement in the kidnapping of 17-month-old Tommaso Onofri, had been convicted years earlier by two courts and sentenced to six years in prison for raping a young woman in Sicily and kidnapping her boyfriend.