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Father kills son during family row

A domestic argument ended in tragedy when a father killed in son, leaving his daughter to find the body.

Published: 29 August 2013 17:35 CEST
Father kills son during family row
The murder in Emilia-Romagna came just days after another father killed his son in Italy. Photo: Rosie Scammell/The Local

Giuseppe Paolino, 72, stabbed his son Nunzio on Wednesday afternoon at their home in Sant’Alberto, in Italy’s central Emilia-Romagna region,  Italian media reported.

He then smoked a cigarette before taking an axe to his son’s body, according to a report in Corriere del Mezzogiorno.

The pensioner called the police to confess to the crime before phoning his daughter who lives nearby, Ravenna Today said.

Paolino’s daughter was the first to arrive on the scene and was soon taken away in an ambulance, suffering from shock, the news site said.

Her father, covered in blood and with a bandaged arm and hands, was held by police.

The pensioner had been living with his 36-year-old son for some time. His son was unemployed and the pair reportedly often fought over money.

The murder comes just days after another Italian pensioner killed his son.

On Sunday morning, 79-year-old Ezio Murtas shot and killed the 40-year-old, a labourer, after a row at their home in Escolca, Sardinia, La Nuova Sardegna reported. 

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CRIME

Italy has most recovery fund fraud cases in EU, report finds

Italy is conducting more investigations into alleged fraud of funds from the EU post-Covid fund and has higher estimated losses than any other country, the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) said.

Published: 8 April 2024 17:05 CEST
Italy has most recovery fund fraud cases in EU, report finds

The EPPO reportedly placed Italy under special surveillance measures following findings that 179 out of a total of 206 investigations into alleged fraud of funds through the NextGenerationEU programme were in Italy, news agency Ansa reported.

Overall, Italy also had the highest amount of estimated damage to the EU budget related to active investigations into alleged fraud and financial wrongdoing of all types, the EPPO said in its annual report published on Friday.

The findings were published after a major international police investigation into fraud of EU recovery funds on Thursday, in which police seized 600 million euros’ worth of assets, including luxury villas and supercars, in northern Italy.

The European Union’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, established to help countries bounce back from the economic blow dealt by the Covid pandemic, is worth more than 800 billion euros, financed in large part through common EU borrowing.

READ ALSO: ‘It would be a disaster’: Is Italy at risk of losing EU recovery funds?

Italy has been the largest beneficiary, awarded 194.4 billion euros through a combination of grants and loans – but there have long been warnings from law enforcement that Covid recovery funding would be targeted by organised crime groups.

2023 was reportedly the first year in which EU financial bodies had conducted audits into the use of funds under the NextGenerationEU program, of which the Recovery Fund is part.

The EPPO said that there were a total of 618 active investigations into alleged fraud cases in Italy at the end of 2023, worth 7.38 billion euros, including 5.22 billion euros from VAT fraud alone.

At the end of 2023, the EPPO had a total of 1,927 investigations open, with an overall estimated damage to the EU budget of 19.2 billion euros.

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