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Italian man suspected of femicide found in Germany

Police have arrested a 22-year-old Italian university student on the run in Germany after allegedly kidnapping and killing his ex-girlfriend, authorities said on Sunday.

Published: 19 November 2023 14:59 CET
Updated: 19 November 2023 16:39 CET

This file photo shows a German police car.

This file photo shows a German police car. An Italian man suspected of murdering his ex-girlfriend has been found in Leipzig, Germany. (Photo by Thomas KIENZLE / AFP)

Filippo Turetta, 22, a university student from Padua, was found on Sunday driving in his car near Leipzig, Germany following a week-long manhunt by Italian authorities, news reports said.

Turetta and his former girlfriend and fellow student, Giulia Cecchettin, went missing last weekend, but on Saturday, her body was found in a gully near
Lake Barcis, about 120 kilometres north of Venice, her head and neck covered with stab wounds.

The suspect “will be back in Italy within 48 hours to answer for his actions”, Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said.

Police got a lead earlier this week after video cameras near Cecchettin’s home captured images of Turetta attacking Cecchettin on November 11, before fleeing with her in his car.

The president of the Veneto region, Luca Zaia, confirmed the arrest, and said a day of mourning would be set for the day of Cecchettin’s funeral.

Cecchettin had been due to graduate last week.

“I think that on the day of the funeral it is right that in schools we talk about femicides,” Zaia told Rainews24, while acknowledging that education was “not enough” to stamp out feminicide.

“We really need to start teaching our young people, from early childhood, to respect women, their sisters, mothers and schoolmates, because that’s how we’ll change things,” Tajani said.

As of November 12, there were 102 homicides with female victims in Italy, 82 of whom were killed by family members or current or former partners, according to the interior ministry.

Turetta was arrested by German police late Saturday after his car ran out of petrol and he parked with his lights off on the emergency lane of a motorway near Leipzig.

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Indians march to end 'slavery' after worker death shakes Italy

Satnam Singh, 31, who had been working without legal papers, died last week after his arm was sliced off by a machine. The farmer he was working for dumped him by the road, along with his severed limb.

“He was thrown out like a dog. There is exploitation every day, we suffer it every day, it must end now,” said Gurmukh Singh, head of the Indian community in the Lazio region of central Italy.

“We come here to work, not to die,” he told AFP.

Children held up colourful signs reading “Justice for Satnam Singh” as the procession snaked through Latina, a city in a rural area south of Rome that is home to tens of thousands of Indian migrant workers.

Indians have worked in the Agro Pontino – the Pontine Marshes – since the mid-1980s, harvesting pumpkins, leeks, beans and tomatoes, and working on flower farms or in buffalo mozzarella production.

Singh’s death is being investigated, but it has sparked a wider debate in Italy over how to tackle systemic abuses in the agriculture sector, where use of undocumented workers and their abuse by farmers or gangmasters is rife.

“Satnam died in one day, I die every day. Because I too am a labour victim,” said Parambar Singh, whose eye was seriously hurt in a work accident.

“My boss said he couldn’t take me to hospital because I didn’t have a contract,” said the 33-year-old, who has struggled to work since.

“I have been waiting 10 months for justice,” he said.

Paid a pittance

The workers get paid an average of 20 euros ($21) a day for up to 14 hours labour, according to the Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto, which analyses working conditions in the agriculture industry.

Far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has sought to reduce the number of undocumented migrants to Italy, while increasing pathways for legal migration for non-EU workers to tackle labour shortages.

But according to the Confagricoltura agribusiness association, only around 30 percent of workers given a visa actually travel to Italy, meaning there are never enough labourers to meet farmers’ needs.

This month, Meloni said Italy’s visa system was being exploited by organised crime groups to smuggle in illegal migrants.

She condemned the circumstances of Singh’s death, saying they were “inhumane acts that do not belong to the Italian people”.

“I hope that this barbarism will be harshly punished,” she told her cabinet ministers last week.

Italy’s financial police identified nearly 60,000 undocumented workers from January 2023 to June 2024.

But Italy’s largest trade union CGIL estimates that as many as 230,000 people – over a quarter of the country’s seasonal agricultural workers – do not have a contract.

While some are Italian, most are undocumented foreigners.

Female workers fare particularly badly, earning even less than their male counterparts and in some cases suffering sexual exploitation, it says.

“We all need regular job contracts, not to be trapped in this slavery,” said Kaur Akveer, a 37-year-old who was part of a group of women in colourful saris marching behind the community leaders.

“Satnam was like my brother. He must be the last Indian to die,” she said.

By AFP’s Ella Ide

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