Filippo Turetta arrested in Germany

(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 19 - Filippo Turetta, a 22-year-old Italian engineering student suspected of murdering his 22-year-old ex girlfriend Giulia Cecchettin, has been arrested in Germany after an eight-day search, his lawyer told ANSA Sunday.
    Turetta's arrest at the spa town of Bad Dürrenberg near Leipzig came a day after fellow information engineering student Cecchettin's body was found with many knife wounds to the neck and head, as well as defensive wounds, in a gully near a lake in the northeastern Italian Friuli region.
    Turetta, who is suspected of murdering Cecchettin in a rage after she left him, was stopped on an international arrest warrant issued by Venice police and is set to be extradited from Germany.
    After the pair went missing last Saturday, Veneto-born Cecchettin's body was found this Saturday near Lake Barcis near Pordenone.
    She is believed to be the 103rd femicide in Italy this year as a spate of gender-based violence continues.
    Premier Giorgia Meloni said on Saturday that the news of Cecchettin's murder is heartbreaking, expressing her hope that "full light will be shed" on the latest in the long string of femicides in Italy.
    "I have followed the updates on the case with apprehension and I hoped for a different outcome until the last," said Meloni on Facebook.
    "The discovery of Giulia's lifeless body is heartbreaking news," she said.
    Earlier opposition centre-left Democratic Party (PD) leader Elly Schlein renewed her call to Meloni to work together to prevent violence against women.
    "At least on the fight against this slaughter of women and girls, let's put to one side political conflict and try to make the country take a step forward," said Schlein.
    "Repression is not enough if prevention is not done," she continued, calling for an immediate law introducing compulsory education on respect and affectivity in all schools in Italy.
    Her comments came after Meloni said Thursday she was seeking agreement on measures to up the fight against gender-based violence (GBV) after an appeal from Italian comic and actress Paola Cortellesi that she and Schlein work together on the issue.
    Cortellesi's directorial debut C'è Ancora Domani (There's Still Tomorrow) on violence against women picked up three awards at the closing ceremony of the 2023 Rome Film Fest.
    The black-and-white film, telling the domestic drama of an abused housewife in post-war Rome and confronting issues of patriarchy and women's empowerment in the year Italian women got to vote for the first time, got a special mention and won the special jury prize and the public's prize and has been a box office hit in Italy.
    Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Sunday that Cecchettin, who was set to discuss her thesis and graduate from Padua University, should be granted an honorary degree from the prestigious Veneto university.
    "This dramatic affair which has struck all of us for the heinousness and brutality of the murder has come to a tragic end for a girl who was set to graduate," he said.
    "I think we should give her a degree 'honoris causa'." (ANSA).