He killed his wife because he was suffering from "delirium of jealousy" and was therefore unable to understand and want. Antonio Gozzini , 81 years old from Brescia, was also acquitted by the appellate judges.

The crime dates back to October 2019: Gozzini had killed his wife Cristina Maioli, a retired teacher, first by hitting her with a rolling pin, then by stabbing. So she had watched over the body in the house for hours before calling a friend of the family and explaining what she had done. In the first instance, a life sentence was sought, today on appeal the request ended at 21 years in prison.

But once again the accused was acquitted of mental infirmity. During the first degree trial, the counsel for the prosecution and defense had agreed on the man's inability to understand and want, but the prosecutor still asked for a life sentence, going so far as to say that "the risk is that the message will pass that any jealous man can be justified. " The Brescia court specified that there was no mention of a jealous person, but of a person suffering from a pathology.

Then came the reasons in 28 pages: "This is an acquittal verdict with which the Court certainly does not intend to reserve Gozzini a safe conduct or indulgent treatment in the face of the perpetration of a horrible action, but simply to take into account an elementary principle of juridical civilization, according to which there can be no punishment where mental illness has clouded in the perpetrator of the crime the ability to understand the meaning of his own behavior ", the words of the President of the Court of Assizes Roberto Spanò.

A thesis evidently also accepted by the appellate judges who confirmed the first verdict despite the fact that the Attorney General Guido Rispoli had asked for Gozzini to be sentenced to 21 years in prison, arguing that "his pathological jealousy had never emerged before the murder. it is only talked about in retrospect, only in an attempt to find a cause of non-punishment ". The same attorney general, after the appeal sentence which confirmed the first degree, limited himself to saying: "We will read the reasons". The lawyer Jacopo Barzellotti, defender of the 81-year-old accused who had asked for his acquittal, was satisfied. "The sentence is right," he commented. "Also because - he added - the motive indicated by the prosecution is totally groundless. Gozzini allegedly killed his wife because he did not want to be hospitalized and subjected to the necessary treatment for her depression. But it emerges from the documents - said the lawyer - not only that Gozzini agreed, but also ready for hospitalization ".

(Unioneonline / D)

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