Top court annuls femicide life term over 'COVID stress'

(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 21 - A decision by the supreme Court of Cassation to annul the life term of a man convicted of killing his girlfriend during the early stages of the COVID-19 health emergency because the sentence did not properly account for the attenuating circumstances related to the pandemic has caused bemusement across the Italian political spectrum.
    The case regards the murder of Lorena Quaranta, a medical student from Favara, in the province of Agrigento, in March 2020.
    Her boyfriend, Calabrian nurse Antonio De Pace, confessed to strangling her to death in a small villa in Furci Siculo, in the province of Messina.
    In an explanation of its decision, the supreme court said the judges who gave the life term "did not examine whether the specific nature of the situation, the COVID period and the difficulty in remedying it, constituted factors affecting the extent of criminal liability".
    As a result, the supreme court sent the case back for the sentence to be re-assessed.
    Elisabetta Lancellotta, an MP for Premier Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, was among the politicians to express astonishment.
    "Sentences should be respected, but it is possible to not agree with them, like the decision of the Court of Cassation to annul the life sentence of the murderer of Lorena Quaranta because he was stressed by the pandemic," Lancellotta said. "COVID cannot, and must not, become a mitigating factor, especially for cases of femicide.
    "During the pandemic we witnessed a considerable increase in domestic violence resulting in tragedy and today's violence risks becoming a dangerous precedent. "Violence against women cannot have mitigating circumstances, out of respect for the victims and their loved ones". (ANSA).