«Another precious page of justice has been written in which the victim of violence has had his reasons recognised. Certainly a sentence will not alleviate all the suffering that the woman has undergone, it will not allow her to overcome the memory of the long-lived fears that she had to face within the walls of the home, it will not give back to the girl and her minor daughter that year of life away from loved ones dearer than their parents because they were relegated to a secret location, far from Valtellina, to be protected. But this sentence gives, if nothing else, a little relief, because it represents the victory of the truth over all the man’s attempts to deny the evidence, thus violating his wife once again.”
This is the lawyer’s comment Gianmaria Moiolawith an office in Cosio Valtellino, to the sentence of three years and one month of imprisonment pronounced in the Court of the Valtellina capital against a 35-year-old man, originally from an Asian country, whose identity we are not revealing so as not to reveal It is possible to identify the victim residing in a locality in the Morbegno district.
Two charges were contested at the end of the investigations by the Flying Squad of the Sondrio Police Headquarters: mistreatment in the family, which occurred on several occasions between 2015 and June 2022, and personal injury related to a specific episode in June 2021, when the foreigner surprised his wife from behind, covering her mouth with his hands, then immobilizing her with both arms and hitting her with repeated shoulder strikes to keep her still, thus causing injuries consisting of “pain in the left arm and neck, chest and defensive contracture to the homolateral trapezius”. The initial prognosis was seven days.
The request of the public prosecutor (Dr Chiara Costagliola replaced in the hearing, in the final part, by the honorary vice prosecutor Caterina Busello) was 3 years and 6 months.
The sentence, issued by the judge Valentina Rattazzoreduced the prosecutor’s request by a few months and the defendant was sentenced to 3 years and 1 month of imprisonment, a 5-year ban from holding public office and to compensation of 10 thousand euros, in addition to the payment of legal costs.
The investigations were conducted by investigators from the Sondrio police station following a complaint and subsequent additions by the woman.
During the hearings, the offended person, her parents and relatives and the psychologist at the time employed by the Social Services (Plan Office) of Morbegno, Doctor Alessandra Gadolaand a police investigator, Vito Luca D’Archiwho mainly worked on the 783 phone calls via WhatsApp.
There were 6 hearings (in addition to the preliminary hearing which ordered the referral to trial). But for the immigrant, defended by the lawyer Francis Traversi of Sondrio, who in the meantime has moved to Emilia Romagna, the troubles with justice may not have ended there. In fact, during one of the latest hearings, he claimed that the couple’s child was beaten by her maternal grandmother, also maintaining that he never harmed his wife from Valtellina. There could be a new complaint for slander soon.
From the investigation documents it emerged that the defendant, blinded by jealousy, on one occasion because the victim had greeted an Egyptian acquaintance on the street, once they returned home he whipped her, then repeatedly hit her legs with the laptop charger cable (episode of February 2015). On another occasion, again in the same month, his wife was attacked, thrown to the floor, grabbed by the neck, ordering her “never to dare greet any man again”. In July of the same year he even grabbed a large kitchen knife, pointing it at her throat, accusing her of having cheated on him with a carabiniere from the Morbegno barracks. A life that had become hell.
“In one case – said the woman who was several years older than her husband – she punched me in the stomach and punched me in the groin and private parts, then pulled my hair forcefully”. And yet another threat from her: “If you leave me I’ll take the child away from you, I’ll take her to my country of origin to raise her under Islamic law.” Once the violent husband was removed from the house he continued: «If I know that you do with someone else what you did with me, I will make a massacre. Paying an Italian to hurt you is easy.”
