The 22-year-old Italian student is suspected of having killed his ex-partner in Italy. German justice announced this Wednesday that it would extradite him. The suspect was arrested on Saturday near Leipzig, in eastern Germany, and placed in pre-trial detention, the court in Naumburg (east) said, without naming him.
He will be kept under arrest until he is handed over to Italian justice, he added. Italian and German authorities indicated on Sunday that it was Filippo Turetta, who had been missing for a week with his former girlfriend Giulia Cecchettin, also 22 years old.
A day of mourning
The student from Padua (northern Italy) is suspected of having kidnapped and killed her. On Saturday, his body was found in a ravine near Lake Barcis, about a hundred kilometers north of Venice, his head and neck slashed with stab wounds. The hunt for the suspect made the headlines in Italian newspapers.
The young woman’s death probably dates back to Sunday November 12. Remote surveillance cameras recorded the knife attack which occurred in the parking lot of an industrial zone in the Veneto region.
The region’s president, Luca Zaia, said a day of mourning would be set on the day of Giulia Cecchettin’s funeral. He also wanted the subject of femicide to be raised in schools. Since the start of the year, 102 homicides in which the victim was a woman have been recorded in Italy, including 82 committed by a family member or partner, according to the Interior Ministry.