BARI – “I’ll starve you to death” and after insulting her and threatening to kill her, he threw objects at her, punched her in the stomach, and squeezed her throat. For almost forty years, a violent husband allegedly mistreated his wife, insulting her and beating her until she, after the last violent attack, decided to report it.
For the man, a 65-year-old from the province of Bari, the Court of Appeal confirmed the conviction for mistreatment and personal injury, while reducing – by granting generic mitigating circumstances – the sentence imposed from 3 years and 2 months to 2 years, one month and ten days of imprisonment.
The two, contemporaries, were married in 1983, she was just 23 years old. A few months later the mistreatment began, “with a series of acts detrimental to her physical and moral integrity – the accusation reconstructs – by subjecting her to a vexatious and violent lifestyle, so as to make family relationships habitually painful and mortifying”. In particular, he would have «systematically attacked her both verbally», with expressions such as «you are ugly, you are moron, ignorant, you are worth nothing, I will make you starve… without me, you are worth nothing, crazy, sick, you must go and wash the doors, you have to go and pound the pavements.” And then also physically, punching her in the stomach and sides and hitting her in the throat, as well as throwing objects and furnishings.
The latest episode, the epilogue of years of harassment, 37 years after the first attack, dates back to an October evening in 2021. The accused allegedly hit his wife with a punch in the stomach and subsequently grabbed her with both hands at her throat, squeezing her tightly and threatening her with the words “I have to strangle you”. That evening she allegedly caused her personal injuries (epigastralgia from emotional stress and blunt trauma to the neck). At that point the woman, tired and worn out by decades of violence within the home, found the courage to first turn to a doctor for treatment after yet another attack and then to ask the police for help.
In the criminal proceedings, the woman was assisted by the lawyer Laura Bellanova. The association Gens Nova with the lawyer Anna de Tommaso was also a civil party. In January 2023, the first-instance sentence arrived, sentencing the man to 3 years and 2 months in prison and to compensate his now ex-wife, with a provisional sum of 10 thousand euros. The appeal process concluded in recent days with the confirmation of the recognition of responsibility for the mistreatment and injuries (a reduced sentence, however), and confirmation of the civil provisions with the sentence to pay the legal costs.
