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Italian drug-fuelled students ‘just wanted to kill someone’

A man arrested over the murder of a 23-year-old during a drug and alcohol-fuelled party reportedly told investigators he and his friend, also a suspect, did it “to feel what it was like to kill someone”.

Published: 7 March 2016 12:51 CET

Italian drug-fuelled students 'just wanted to kill someone'

Luca Varani was invited to an apartment in the outskirts of Rome for a drink and drugs-fuelled party. Photo: Raffaele Esposito

Manuel Foffo and Marco Prato were arrested after the naked body of Luca Varani was found in the bedroom of an apartment owned by Foffo in Collatino, in Rome’s outskirts, on Saturday night.

Varani was allegedly tortured, stabbed and beaten with a hammer by the two university students during a two-day party that was fuelled by alcohol and cocaine.

“We wanted to kill someone only to see what affect it would have on us,” 30-year-old Foffo told prosecutor Francesco Scavo, Ansa reported, citing sources.

“We went out in the car the night before, hoping to meet someone. Then we thought of Varani, who my friend (Marco Prato) knew.”

Foffo, a law student, confessed the murder to his father, who reported the crime to police.

Prato, meanwhile, sought refuge in a hotel near Piazza Bologna, where he attempted to kill himself with barbiturates, La Stampa reported. The 29-year-old is now in hospital under police guard.

“I do not know why we did it,” a distraught Prato reportedly said through tears.

Investigators seized two kitchen knives and a hammer from the apartment.

Italy's Liguria regional president arrested in corruption probe

Liguria President Giovanni Toti, a right-wing former MEP who was close to late prime minister Silvio Berlusconi but is no longer party aligned, was placed under house arrest, Genoa prosecutors said in a statement.

The 55-year-old is accused of having accepted 74,100 euros in funds for his election campaign between December 2021 and March 2023 from prominent local businessmen, Aldo Spinelli and his son Roberto Spinelli, in return for various favours.

These allegedly included seeking to privatise a public beach and speeding up the renewal for 30 years of the lease of a Genoa port terminal to a Spinelli family-controlled company, which was approved in December 2021.

A total of 10 people were targeted in the probe, also including Paolo Emilio Signorini, who stepped down last year as head of the Genoa Port Authority, one of the largest in Italy. He was being held in jail on Tuesday.

He is accused of having accepted from Aldo Spinelli benefits including cash, 22 stays in a luxury hotel in Monte Carlo – complete with casino chips, massages and beauty treatments – and luxury items including a 7,200-euro Cartier bracelet.

The ex-port boss, who went on to lead energy group Iren, was also promised a 300,000-euro-a-year job when his tenure expires, prosecutors said.

In return, Signorini was said to have granted Aldo Spinelli favours including also working to speed up the renewal of the family’s port concession.

The Spinellis are themselves accused of corruption, with Aldo – an ex-president of the Genoa and Livorno football clubs – placed under house arrest and his son Roberto temporarily banned from conducting business dealings.

In a separate strand of the investigation, Toti’s chief of staff, Matteo Cozzani, was placed under house arrest accused of “electoral corruption” which facilitated the activities of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra Mafia.

As regional coordinator during local elections in 2020, he was accused of promising jobs and public housing in return for the votes of at least 400 Sicilian residents of Genoa.

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