Gino Cecchettin in Turetta's defence: Giulia's memory humiliated

Gino Cecchettin waited patiently for 24 hours to let settle the emotions and indignation he felt on hearing the words of Filippo Turetta's defence lawyer in his harangue in the courtroom of the Venice Assize Court where the trial of the murderer of the young student Giulia Cechettin is under way. Harsh words those of Giulia's father, unheard of for someone who, like him, until now had not wanted to express any evaluation but only wished that justice would be done.

'I felt offended again, and Giulia's memory humiliated,' Gino Cecchettin wrote in a post on social media. "The defence of a defendant is an inviolable right," Cecchettin wrote, "but I believe it is important to keep within a limit that is dictated by common sense and human respect. Crossing this limit risks increasing the pain of the victim's family, and arousing indignation in those who witness it'. For Turetta, the pm Andrea Petroni asked for life imprisonment before the Assize Court of Venice where the trial is being held. Petroni asked for it on 25 November, the day against violence against women.

Giulia's father referred to the words spoken by lawyer Giuseppe Caruso on Tuesday, 26 November, to ask that the aggravating circumstances that would lead him straight to life imprisonment, in particular that of premeditation, should not be applied to Turetta, as requested by the public prosecutor: 'Giulia Cecchettin,' the lawyer argued in court, 'was not afraid of Filippo Turetta. She was seeing a psychologist, but we do not know that it was because of her relationship with Filippo. Nobody doubts that Filippo was obsessed with Giulia, but the many 'toxic relationship' messages cannot be related to their relationship before October 2023'. Filippo Turetta, said the lawyer, 'knows that he will have to do many years in jail, but he is not el Chapo, he is not Pablo Escobar'. After dad Cecchettin's words, Turetta's lawyers Caruso and Monica Cornaviera replied. "As defenders,' they commented to ANSA, 'we are absolutely certain that we have not in any way exceeded the limits of expressive continence, and that we have not disrespected anyone. We have only performed our duty in a state under the rule of law'.

The insinuation about psychological treatment and the alleged 'non-toxicity' of the defendant's attentions are, however, evidently the elements that hurt Giulia's relatives. 'Two, three hundred phone calls a day was not a persecutory act? One does not live, one should turn one's mobile phone off and never turn it on again,' said Giulia's grandmother, Carla Gatto, also in court at Tuesday's hearing. 'I think it's nonsense,' the woman stressed, 'to say that there was no premeditation in her murder, he (the lawyer, ed.) said absurd words given the evidence that there is and the facts as they happened, it just hurts to hear these words. She is the victim, not Turetta'.

And as the trial draws to a close, with the verdict scheduled for the last hearing on 3 December, the issue of feminicides and Giulia's case do not stop stirring and dividing society and politics. In Verona, during the Job&Orienta fair, Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara, returned to the subject after his statements on the relationship between gender violence and immigration that had already sparked controversy. 'This year,' he said in front of the students, 'feminicides in Italy committed by partners have fallen by 12%. We believe that this figure is also thanks to the culture of prevention that this government, and in particular the minister for equal opportunities and the family, Eugenia Maria Roccella, has initiated'. And rather than patriarchy, for Valditara 'it is machismo that is our real enemy, and it must be fought strenuously, with the culture of respect'. These words provoked a reaction from Valentina Ghio, PD vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies and member of the parliamentary commission on feminicide, according to whom the government 'in the last two years has not implemented any structural intervention on training, culture and affective and sexual education in schools'.