The town of Pordenone, in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, is in shock after a father allegedly murdered his wife with a hatchet before killing his seven-year-old daughter as she slept.

According to a reconstruction of events by investigators and the coroner, 40-year-old Abdelhadi Lahmar pushed his wife onto their bed before striking her with the axe a dozen times at around 3am on Wednesday morning. Knife wounds were also found on her body.

Lahmar then went into his daughter Hiba’s bedroom while she was asleep and slit her throat, almost decapitating her, according to the Pordenone edition of Il Gazzettino. He then covered her face with a sheet “as a gesture of pity”.

Lahmar then alerted the police who came and arrested him.

Emergency services described the scene as a “massacre” and the mother and child were pronounced dead at the scene. 

Originally from Morocco, Lahmar had been living in Italy for some time with his family. He had worked irregularly in the past but is currently unemployed.

His wife, Touria Errebaibi, 30, had worked as a waitress at some restaurants in the town centre and also took care of the family.

Lahmar had recently travelled to Morocco, where he allegedly telephoned his wife and threatened to kill her.

According to a mother at the primary school attended by the daughter, Errebaibi feared that her husband would kill her.

“She was scared to death and told us that she was scared for her own life,” she told Il Gazzettino.

Another acquaintance of the woman told the paper: “In the past she had already been beaten. She never complained, despite suffering constant threats to her safety.”