The Venice public prosecutor’s office on Monday requested life imprisonment at the trial of a man who committed a feminicide which shocked Italy. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to denounce the survival of “patriarchy”. The prosecution’s indictment comes, by coincidence, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Filippo Turetta is on trial for the assassination in November 2023 of his ex-fiancée, Giulia Cecchettin, a 22-year-old student whose body was found in a ravine with dozens of stab wounds. The prosecutor, Andrea Petroni, stressed that the requested sentence was based on the facts only and did not arise from “reflections on feminicides and on the Day against Violence Against Women”. “We do not consider them appropriate in a court of law,” he argued.
84 feminicides in Italy in 2024
The verdict is expected on December 3. Without mentioning this affair, the head of government Giorgia Meloni castigated on her X account the “social and cultural plague” that constitutes violence against women. A week ago, the Minister of Education caused controversy by asserting that “patriarchy no longer exists” and attributing violence against women to immigration.
On Monday, the Milan court also sentenced another man, Alessandro Impagnatiello, to life in prison for the murder in May 2023 of his fiancée, Giulia Tramontano, then seven months pregnant.
A demonstration against violence against women brought together thousands of people in the center of Rome on Saturday. “We are the cry, strong and fierce, of all these women who no longer have a voice,” the participants chanted. The Ministry of the Interior has recorded 84 feminicides since the start of the year in Italy, after 96 in 2023 and 106 in 2022.
