Giulia Cecchettin’s family awaits killer’s sentence in Italy

A verdict is anticipated on Tuesday in a homicide case that gripped Italy and sparked a heated debate on the difficulty of violence towards ladies.

Prosecutors have requested that Filippo Turetta, 22, be sentenced to life in jail for stabbing to demise his ex-girlfriend Giulia Cecchettin final November.

Over the final yr an enormous quantity of element in regards to the killing has emerged, forming an image of an more and more anguished younger lady harassed by her possessive ex-boyfriend who refused to simply accept the top of their relationship.

The case, which captivated Italians, has thrust the ideas of femicide, patriarchy and male violence into the headlines.

On 11 November 2023 Mr Turetta picked up his ex-girlfriend Ms Cecchettin, a 22-year-old biomedical engineering scholar from the Venice province, to take her looking for an outfit for her upcoming commencement.

Later that night, he stabbed her greater than 70 occasions, and left the scholar’s physique on the backside of a ditch, wrapped in plastic luggage.

Then, he disappeared. For every week, Italians adopted the seek for the couple with baited breath. The discovery of Ms Cecchettin’s physique on 18 November was met with an unprecedented outpouring of grief. The subsequent day, Mr Turetta was arrested in Germany. He readily admitted to killing Ms Cecchettin and was extradited to Italy.

To elevate consciousness of the indicators of controlling relationships, Ms Cecchettin’s household just lately shared an inventory she wrote just a few months earlier than her demise, titled “15 reasons I had to break up with him”.

In it, Ms Cecchettin stated Mr Turetta insisted she had a “duty” to assist him examine, complained if she despatched him fewer emoji hearts than regular, didn’t need her to exit with buddies and wanted her to textual content him on a regular basis.

“They were the typical signs of possessiveness,” Giulia’s father Gino Cecchettin instructed the BBC. “He would deny her her own space, or demand to always be included. He always needed to know everything she said to her friends or even her therapist.”

“We realised later that she thought she was the cause of his pain, that she felt responsible for it,” he stated.

In an 80-page assertion written from jail in childlike handwriting, Mr Turetta stated since Ms Cecchettin broke up with him he spent on daily basis hoping to get again along with her. “I didn’t feel like I could accept any other outcome,” he wrote.

In his police interrogation Mr Turetta confirmed that, on the night time he killed her, Ms Cecchettin had simply instructed him he was too dependent and needy.

“I shouted that it wasn’t fair, that I needed her,” Mr Turetta stated, including that he killed her after getting “very angry” when she tried to get out of the automotive.

“I was selfish and it’s only now I realise it,” he wrote. “I didn’t think about how incredibly unfair that was to her and to the promising and wonderful life she had ahead of her.”

Mr Turetta’s lawyer Giovanni Caruso has argued that his consumer ought to be spared an “inhuman and degrading” life sentence and pushed again towards allegations that the killing had been premeditated.

“He is not Pablo Escobar,” Mr Caruso stated – a line of defence Giulia’s father instructed the BBC made him really feel “violated all over again”.

Stories of femicide routinely prime the information agenda in Italy, however Giulia Cecchettin’s story attracted an uncommon quantity of consideration from the beginning. The week-long seek for the younger couple gripped individuals; the revelation that Ms Cecchettin had been killed simply days earlier than her commencement moved them. More than 10,000 attended her funeral.

But it was the tearful and livid interview given by Giulia’s sister Elena, by which she stated that Filippo Turetta was not a “monster” however “the healthy son of a patriarchal society” which sparked a heated debate on male violence and gender roles in fashionable Italy.

Elena’s phrases reverberated. Suddenly, the patriarchy – an idea thought by many as arcane or irrelevant – was mentioned extensively.

“If you’re a man you’re part of a system that teaches you that you are worth more than women,” Mr Cecchettin instructed the BBC.

“It means that if you’re in a relationship everything needs to go through you… and so a patriarch can’t be told: ‘I don’t love you anymore’, because it goes against his sense of ownership.”

In November, on the launch of a basis established by Gino Cecchettin in reminiscence of Giulia, Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara argued that the patriarchy now not existed in Italy and stated the rise in sexual violence was as a substitute “linked to the marginalisation and perversion that stems from illegal immigration”.

The feedback sparked outrage. “Giulia was killed by a respectable, white Italian man,” Elena Cecchettin hit again. “My father has done something to prevent violence. What is the government doing?”

Since his daughter’s demise, Gino Cecchettin has thrown himself headfirst right into a battle to show youngsters easy methods to deal with feelings and relationships, touring faculties to inform pupils his daughter’s story.

He additionally hopes that sharing Giulia’s personal voice and phrases might assist others – like one voice message she despatched buddies by which she sounds each exasperated by Mr Turetta’s insistence and riddled with guilt about his suicidal ideas. “I wish I could disappear,” she says. “But I’m worried he could hurt himself.”

Elisa Ercoli of Differenza Donna, a charity that fights gender-based violence, instructed the BBC the messages had a tangible influence, along with her organisation getting a excessive variety of calls from dad and mom who recognised related behaviours of their daughters. “We think bruises are the problem but underhand psychological violence is the issue in many situations,” she stated.

A authorities division has additionally stated that the nationwide anti-violence helpline skilled a surge in calls after Ms Cecchettin’s homicide, and that the variety of calls is now 57% larger than final yr.

But NGOs and opposition politicians are all demanding that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s authorities take concrete steps to stop and punish violence towards ladies, equivalent to “affectivity lessons” in faculties.

“What the Cecchettin family is doing is a grain of sand compared to what the government would have the power to achieve,” stated Francesca Ghio, a leftwing councillor in Genoa who just lately publicly revealed she was raped when she was 12 – she stated the choice to talk out was impressed by the “strength” of the Cecchettin household.

“They are turning their pain into love and action. We can’t just stand by.”

As the 10-week trial approached its finish, Mr Cecchettin stated he felt calm.

Remembering his “perfect daughter” who’s now a family title, Mr Cecchettin stated he thought there could be a “before” and an “after” Giulia’s homicide.

But whereas Italy has gained a logo, his loss is incalculable. “I realised I can’t rewind life and time,” he stated, “and I realised that no person can ever give me Giulia again.”