Federico Vella allegedly ambushed and abducted his ex-partner Lorenza Isceri before he threw her from the A1 motorway viaduct. Italy records its eighth femicide since Ferragosto.
A man has been accused of killing his ex-girlfriend by throwing her from a motorway viaduct near Florence on Thursday. Her death has been recorded as Italy’s latest femicide.
What allegedly happened
Federico Vella is alleged to have ambushed Lorenza Isceri, locking her inside the garage of her home in Florence before forcing her into the boot of his car. He then allegedly drove towards the A1, Italy’s principal north-south motorway.
According to investigators, Vella realised partway through the journey that Isceri had a backpack containing a mobile phone with her in the boot. She had used it to call the emergency number 112 as well as a friend for help. He is said to have stopped the car, taken the phone from her, and then thrown her from the motorway viaduct.
Police are now working to establish whether Isceri was killed before she was thrown from the bridge or died as a result of the fall itself.
Part of a fresh wave of violence
The case is the latest in a run of femicides in Italy since the mid-August Ferragosto holiday on 15 August, with seven other women killed by partners or ex-partners in the weeks since.
Among them, a 72-year-old woman was bludgeoned to death with a rock by her 74-year-old husband in a field near Cosenza, in Calabria. A 50-year-old Polish woman was stabbed to death by her 69-year-old Tunisian husband at Colleferro, south of Rome.
Earlier cases include the killing of a 39-year-old woman near Venice by her 43-year-old ex-husband, whom she had reported to police on several occasions for domestic violence, and who had separately been reported by three other women since 2002.
A national emergency
Femicide has been officially classed as a national emergency in Italy, with fatal violence against women reaching record levels. Italy has since introduced a specific new criminal offence of femicide.
A planned education campaign aimed at encouraging healthy relationships has, however, run into difficulty after the government made participation in school courses conditional on parental consent — a move that prompted protests from opposition parties.
If you are a woman suffering from abuse or violence, you can call 1522 (Numero Antiviolenza e Stalking), run by the Department for Equal Opportunities. It’s free, available 24/7, multilingual, and can be reached by phone or via the numeroantiviolenza.gov.it website (which also has an online chat). Calls don’t appear on phone bills, which matters for safety in abusive households.
If you are in immediate danger, call 112.
