ARTFUL ARANCINI

In Italy domiciliari, or house arrest, is often used for minor crimes and sometimes for prisoners who are nearing the end of their sentences or are too ill to remain in a correctional facility. This punishment is very strict and over the years on this blog, I have sometimes written about the comical occasions when offenders undergoing it have run away because they can no longer stand being shut up with their family, or have even gone to the police station begging for rearrest. One wonders how they fared in lockdown.

However, the offender who takes the biscuit - or rather, the riceball - is the young man from Catania who this week evaded house arrest to buy a tray of arancini. I must admit, the arancini of Catania are very good, and anyone who has ever experienced the aroma of freshly made Sicilian arancini wafting towards them from a nearby rosticceria will feel some empathy towards this man. Apparently an offender under house arrest can obtain permission to attend an urgent medical or dental appointment and this is what the young man had done. However, it was not the first time he had told police he was going to the dentist and they had become suspicious. After checking with his dental surgery and finding that he had never been there during his house arrest, the police waited outside his home, and soon along he came, already eating one of the steaming arancini from the trayful he had just purchased.

Whether the carabinieri confiscated the whole trayful is not known.