"Alex acquitted because he fought for his life, the only alternative was to die"

He killed his father in "self-defense" during "a waged struggle to survive".

For this reason Alex Pompa was acquitted , the reasons for the sentence with which the Court of Assizes of Turin on November 24 cleared the 21-year-old from the accusation of murder were filed, despite the request of the prosecutor who said he was "forced to ask for 14 years in prison ".

On 30 April 2020, in the family home in Collegno (Turin), the young man pierced his father Giovanni Pompa 34 times using six different kitchen knives. The parent, in one of his frequent and furious outbursts of anger, had just lashed out at his mother. For the umpteenth time.

The judges largely accepted the thesis of legitimate defense. The trial, in the opinion of the Court, clarified not only the background, but also the dynamics of the fact. Joseph was not an innocent victim, but a "furious" aggressor, armed with a knife, who "had the eyes of a devil" and shouted "I'll kill you all".

For Alex the only alternative was to "succumb" and allow his father to rage against his mother and brother.

The sentence recounts the years of "climate of tension" and "very high violence" suffered by his wife, Maria, and by their two children, Alex and Loris, who had managed to secretly record the outbursts of the father: "Sooner or later he would have killed us, we wanted to leave a trace".

"I was afraid of becoming yet another victim of a femicide," said Ms. Maria. That "terrible" April 30, her husband had contacted her angrily by phone and via whatsapp about a hundred times just because she had greeted a work colleague (she was a cashier) with a smile. Perhaps - the judges note - his remaining balance was "blown" for the lockdown; certainly he had drunk too much.

However, he verbally assaulted her before she even crossed the threshold of the house. For the prosecutor it was not enough to justify the stabs even in the form of culpable excess in self-defense. But the Court took a different view. And Alex, a model student, a mild-mannered boy forced to grow up in a "traumatizing climate", was acquitted.

(Unioneonline / L)