Italy’s Meloni seeks symbolic compensation from suspects over deepfake porn images, report says

ROME (AP) — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni has been asked to testify in court July 2 in the trial of two men who are accused of making deepfake pornographic images using her face and posting them online, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

Meloni, who is listed as an injured party in the Sassari, Sardinia trial, is seeking 100,000 euros in damages and will donate any award to an interior ministry fund for women victims of domestic violence, ANSA quoted her attorney Maria Giulia Marongiu as saying Tuesday.

According to ANSA, Italy’s postal police in 2020 identified the father and son who allegedly uploaded the deepfake images to a U.S.-based porn site by tracing the data to one of their cell phones. At the time Meloni was not premier, but head of her Brothers of Italy party.

Marongiu has said any award would be “symbolic.” She said she hoped Meloni’s decision to pursue the case would send a message to women who are victim of such abuses of power to not be afraid to file complaints, ANSA said.