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'."
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