Giulia Cecchettin was stabbed for the first time by Filippo Turetta while she was at 11.15pm on Saturday 11 November in the car park in front of her house. Then, after probably immobilizing her with duct tape, he pushed his ex-girlfriend into the car, reached the industrial area of Fossò in a few minutes, and here he attacked her again while she attempted to escape, killing her. Thus – the newspapers report – the phases of Giulia Cecchettin’s murder are condensed in the papers of the investigating judge who signed the first warrant for attempted murder – the body of the 22-year-old had not yet been found.
Italy is mobilizing in the name of Giulia Cecchettin, the young woman killed by her ex-boyfriend, with a series of initiatives to remember her and to once again shout society’s no to violence against women. Sit-ins, flash mobs, marches, silence, occupied high schools, are some of the initiatives that precede the large demonstrations scheduled for next Saturday, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, established by the UN.
Giulia’s killing has deeply affected Italians and events are being reported everywhere to remember her and to raise awareness on the issue of gender violence. Schools and universities are on the front line. The Minister of Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara, has promoted a minute of silence for today at 11am in all institutions for women victims of violence. While tomorrow he will present the project guidelines against gender violence.
But it’s not enough for the capital’s students. “We will make noise in schools all over Italy. Burn everything”, reads the post of ‘Roma schools in struggle’. The Osa movement is promoting “a day of anger” in schools and universities today. Also in Rome, the Machiavelli high school was occupied “for Giulia and against any femicide. No more victims”, the slogan.
The acceptance of Filippo Turetta to return to Italy is an “aspect that accelerates, over the course of about ten daysthe possibility of “providing for” his extradition. The chief prosecutor of Venice explained this to journalists, Bruno Cherchi. “Already since Sunday – he stated in Venice – contacts have been initiated with the German judiciary, the timing of Filippo Turetta’s extradition depends on them, but they are very collaborative”. “We started – he summarized – looking for two missing people, then we know how it ended, but in the middle there are many elements to put together, not only the discovery in Barcis, but how the events happened. We have to put everything together, not break it up the individual steps, which would damage the investigation.” According to Cherchi “everything that was acquired was recovered on time; there is currently no need for urgency, and then the experts from Turetta and the injured parties will have the right to participate in all our investigations with our technicians “.
“The discovery of the girl’s body clearly requires the change of the charge, which has therefore been changed. It is voluntary homicide, at present – he said Cherchi –but it is a provisional accusation because we have to carry out all the technical checks on the places, on the finds, on the car, we have to hear Turetta’s version of events, and only at that point can a more complete assessment be made”.
“No comments” from the ‘Oberlandesgericht’ of Naumburg, the highest court of ordinary jurisdiction in Saxony-Anhalt, on the times for extradition Of Filippo Turetta in Italy. The twenty-two-year-old “was not interrogated, because a defender must be appointed. We must interrogate him, but this could be when he is handed over”, specified the chief prosecutor of Venice. “If the German procedure took a long time – added Cherchi – we could think about going to hear it in Germany”.
The request from the general prosecutor’s office relating to Turetta has not yet reached the Naumburg court. “At the moment, the time required for the arrival of a relevant request from the Attorney General’s Office and for the further procedure cannot be communicated,” a court note merely confirmed.
In Vigonovo (Venice) Gino Cecchettin, Giulia’s father, told reporters: “I don’t feel anger, I don’t feel anything. I think of my Giulia who is no longer there for me.” During the torchlight procession on Sunday evening in the town Filippo Turetta’s father, Nicola, approached two relatives of Giulia Cecchettin, expressing his condolences and shock.
ANSA Agency A message between Filippo and Giulia’s fathers, ‘forgiveness’
There was contact, via WhatsApp message, between Gino Cecchettin and Nicola Turetta. We learn this from Emanuele Compagno, defender of Filippo Turetta. According to the lawyer, as well as Giulia’s maternal uncle, Andrea Camerotto, it does not appear that the two spoke directly on the telephone. In Turetta’s message to Giulia’s father, the latter expressed “the utmost participation in their pain, and a strong closeness” asking for “forgiveness” and adding that “Filippo will have to pay for what he has done”.
Salvini: ‘The family must be a family’
“We as the League have fought for civic education, which is now a reality. I say it as a father, however: the school must be the school, the society must be the society, the institutions must be the institutions, but the family must be the family Because it is clear and evident that the school cannot reach everywhere, nor can the mayor or the minister. It is the mother and father who must understand if they have someone at home who risks becoming a problem.” Thus Matteo Salvini in Reggio Calabria answering a question from journalists on the murder of Giulia Cecchettin.
“The teachers, the professors – added Salvini – after five or six hours of school they no longer have contact with the children. The important thing, therefore, is not to think that only the school can solve everything. Evidently there is a problem at home too, not just at school. Because if someone kills at the age of 22, everything possible must be done to ensure it doesn’t happen.”
Elena: ‘My sister was good but not stupid and naive’
“My sister was kinder, sweeter, more sensitive than what everyone imagines. A pure soul, an eternal child but not in the sense of stupid and naive; in the sense that she was a person who lived life lightly and without badness”. Elena Cecchettin told journalists this morning, recalling Giulia again. “This morning – she added – I imagined my sister telling me ‘come on, go’. She always told me that I was a ‘hoplite’. When she was in classical high school she told me that hoplites were warriors and she always said that you have to have the strength of a hoplite.”
“I tell kids: think about the time when you disrespected a woman for being a woman, when you disrespected someone just because she was a woman, you maybe made ‘cat calling’, sexist comments with your friends. Locker room irony, as they call it, is not good”, reiterated Elena Cecchettin.
“Do an examination of conscience – she continued – and realize this thing, and then learn from this episode and start checking, calling your other friends too, because this must start from you. Because we women can learn to defend ourselves, but until men examine their consciences and realize the privilege they have in this society we will get nowhere. And really, do it for my sister, there is no shame in doing this examination. There is no shame in admitting that you made a mistake, because if you then change it is useful, and there is nothing wrong, we all make mistakes. But we must realize it – concluded Elena – and we must become aware of what our privilege is”.
The rector: “Giulia will certainly graduate”
“Giulia was supposed to graduate last Thursday: she would have been the first student expected at 8.30 for an engineering degree. A degree that will happen, there will certainly be.” The rector of the University of Padua, Maddalena Mapelli, said this during a conference in the main hall which opened with a minute’s silence in memory of the murdered young woman. “But this – she added – is the time to respect the pain of Giulia’s family, father and brothers. When the time comes we will contact the family for a ceremony with the timing and methods that the family will want to accept”.
Metsola: ‘Enough institutional blindness on feminicides’
“Giulia Cecchettin is one of the many examples of abuse and feminicide, of people killed just for being women, it is unworthy and unacceptable.” This was said by the President of the European Chamber Roberta Metsola, during the opening of the plenary session in Strasbourg. “We need an adequate protection framework, more sentences for the assailants. We need to put an end to institutional blindness towards feminicides, it is already too late, there will be no words to console the families but justice is a support for those who remain alive”, he said Metsola underlined.
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