Italian man suspected of femicide found in Germany – lawyer

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

Filippo Turetta, a 22-year-old university student from Padua, was found Sunday driving in his car near Leipzig in Germany following a week-long manhunt by Italian authorities, his lawyer, Emanuele Compagno, confirmed to Italy’s Ansa news agency.

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Turetta and his former girlfriend and fellow student, Giulia Cecchettin, went missing last weekend.

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 manhunt was front-page news in Italy over the past week — when the victim had been due to receive her degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Padua — and represented the latest episode of femicide in Italy.

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, news reports said.

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

“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 femicide.

In the year to November 12, there have been 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.

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