(ANSA) – Venice, August 3 – A court in the northern city of Padua (Italy) overturned an expulsion order for a 26-year-old gay Nigerian who would be at risk of imprisonment if he returned to his country.

Attorney Carla Favaron from the taxpayers’ association Federcontribuenti said that the court’s decision to grant the man a permit allowing him to stay in Italy was a “watershed legal victory in the country”.

In Nigeria homosexuality is punishable by law with a prison sentence of up to 14 years.