The Venice Court of Assizes on Tuesday sentenced a student to life in prison who stabbed his ex-girlfriend to death, a crime that shocked the country and reignited the debate on violence against women.
The court followed the prosecution’s requisitions against Filippo Turetta, 22, for the murder in November 2023 of Giulia Cecchettin, excluding certain aggravating circumstances, according to the verdict read live by the President of the Court. The biomedical engineering student in Padua, a university town about forty kilometers from Venice, had received at least 75 stab wounds.
The accused’s lawyer, Giovanni Caruso, considered the request for life imprisonment excessive, saying that his client, who admitted the facts, was not “pas Pablo Escobar”the notorious Colombian drug lord. At the opening of the trial in Venice in September, he warned against “media trial” and insisted last week on the absence of “aggravating circumstances” like premeditation.
But according to prosecutor Andrea Petroni, Mr. Turetta acted with “a particular brutality” towards his partner before fleeing with the victim in his car.
The body was found a week after his disappearance in a ravine near Lake Barcis, north of Venice, and Mr. Turetta was arrested the next day near Leipzig, Germany.
“Gender violence cannot be fought with sentences (prison sentences, editor’s note) but with prevention,” Gino Cecchettin, Giulia’s father, reacted hotly after the verdict was read.
“Patriarchy kills”
The murder of the 22-year-old student has reignited the debate on violence against women in Italy, where macho and sexist behavior persists.
Thousands of people attended his funeral and his father implored the men to “challenge the culture that tends to minimize violence from seemingly normal men.”
Giulia’s sister, Elena, called for a cultural revolution, urging “burn everything“, a message since written on walls and banners, often accompanied by the phrase: “Patriarchy kills.”
Of 276 murders recorded by the Italian Interior Ministry this year, 100 victims were women, 88 of whom were killed by a relative, the vast majority by a companion or ex-companion.
A figure comparable to the 110 femicides out of 310 murders during the same period last year, including 90 women killed by a loved one. In 2022, 106 women were killed by a loved one, and 107 in 2021.
The Cecchettin family created a foundation to develop awareness, support for women victims of violence and encourage equality and respect.
In late November, tens of thousands of people marched in Rome and Palermo (Sicily) to mark an international day against femicide, many of them marching in Cecchettin’s name.
Ministerial outcry
While denouncing historical discrimination against women and the absence of policies such as sex education in schools, some activists accuse the ultraconservative government of Giorgia Meloni of abandoning women.
In November, the Minister of Education, Giuseppe Valditara, sparked a controversy by declaring that “patriarchy no longer exists” in Italian law and by attributing violence against women to illegal immigration. Elena Cecchettin replied that her sister had been killed by a “young white Italian”.
Meloni, the first woman prime minister, said last week that there was no shortage of legislation in Italy, but “the challenge remained above all cultural”.
The leader of the far-right Fratelli d’Italia party also drew a link to illegal immigration, even though official figures from 2022 show that 94% of Italian female murder victims were killed by Italians.
italy femicide venice Filippo Turetta Giulia Cecchettin
