Filippo Turetta, questioned for five hours in the second hearing of the trial for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Giulia Cecchettin, admits to having premeditated the crime .
For the first time, the 22-year-old has left prison - he has been locked up in Verona for a year - since his arrest in Germany on November 19, 2023. And for the first time he found himself face to face with Gino Cecchettin , Giulia's father.
The young man is dressed in black pants and a gray hoodie, holding a folder with some documents. Before sitting down next to his trusted lawyers, Giovanni Caruso and Monica Cornaviera, he turned his head a couple of times, looking around. While Cecchettin followed the deposition, keeping his gaze fixed on him, Turetta never met his eyes, always keeping his gaze low and away from the public and the benches of the civil parties.
According to his lawyer, Turetta has filed " a 40-page document in which he calmly tries to reconstruct his memories point by point and add or integrate what was said during the long interrogations ."
When asked how Turetta was doing, lawyer Giovanni Caruso replied: "He's a wet rabbit, can you say?"
THE INTERROGATION
Then the interrogation began. Turetta hesitates, stammers, utters disjointed sentences and a series of "I don't remember", but basically admits everything, even the premeditation denied in the first interrogation after the arrest. " I thought about kidnapping her and taking her life, I was confused, I wanted to be with her again. I was angry, it was a very bad time, I wanted to get back with her and that's why I hypothesized this plan for that evening ", he says in response to the first questions of the prosecutor Andrea Petroni. Eyes down, voice low. When did he start planning it all? "November 7 (2023, ed.) because I started thinking, I had so many wrong thoughts" . The murder occurred on November 11.
Turetta then explains that he wrote the brief filed today at the trial and the previous letters "several times over time, reconstructing what had happened, to put things in order. I started in February-March, and continued all summer, up until these days. First I wrote it in one go, then I reread and put in order those parts that I could not have written in one go."
The young man admits to having premeditated the crime and to having told "a series of lies" during the first interrogation. " A few days before, I had drawn up a list of things to do. Withdraw cash from the ATM, then throw it away to cover my tracks. I had also studied on the Internet how to avoid the car being identified during the escape ."
In the first interrogation before the investigators, Turetta had stated that the tape had been purchased to "hang posters", the knives because "he was thinking of committing suicide" . Turetta's admissions confirm the prosecution's theses according to which the tape was used to tie up Giulia and that the knives had been placed in the car well before November 11, the day of the crime . In fact, it emerged that the whole affair is supported - as per the investigation - by a series of preparatory acts, some of which were not put into action at the last moment.
Turetta never mentions Giulia's name in over two hours , despite admitting what he did and saying heavy sentences like "I killed her and then hid the body". Silence reigns in the Assize Court of Venice. The prosecutor Andrea Petroni tries to formulate the questions in a simple and direct way, pressing Turetta who, despite the memories filed, stammers, hesitates, answers with "I don't remember" even when faced with the evidence of images and objects, sometimes with a strangled voice. Turetta's lawyer, Giovanni Caruso, constantly stares into Filippo's eyes .
The story of the murder: "Giulia was running away, maybe I hit her in the car, on a thigh, I don't remember, then I don't know if she fell or I made her fall to the ground. She screamed and I hit her again. I wanted to hit her neck so she wouldn't suffer, she raised her hands to defend herself and then I tried to hit her as quickly as possible from other parts. Then I found myself with only the handle (of the knife, ed.) in my hand and I loaded her into the car."
During the hearing it also emerged that in the days preceding the murder, in an ice cream shop in Padua, Turetta had had a serious verbal fight because he wanted to get back together with her, and that he had slapped her on the thigh: " She - he stressed - was always complaining because I was annoying ."
The cell phone: «I think I took it, it was in the purse that I had taken from her to prevent her from using it . Then, after Fossò, I threw it out the window, along with the knife, I think in a ditch, a small canal that surrounds a piece of land, but I don't remember exactly where, I was driving, I was on a secondary road».
Again: " When I abandoned the body I covered it because I didn't want it to be found, it was in such conditions that I wanted to avoid it being seen in what state it was in ." Turetta, who has always maintained that he wanted to commit suicide, says he tried to do so with a plastic bag, "but I couldn't." This is a circumstance about which the prosecutor expressed more than one doubt that the 22-year-old was unable to dispel.
Then it's the civil party's turn, and Turetta bursts into tears : "It's difficult right now," he says, responding to Nicodemo Gentile. "I wanted to get back together with her, I was suffering a lot and I resented her. I was angry because I was suffering from this thing, and this upset me. I wanted our fate to be the same for both of us and so I thought about abandoning my body and committing suicide . We argued in the car because I wanted to get back together, just like I had done in the previous days, even in chat." And what if the plan failed? "I never thought the plan could fail."
GINO CECCHETTIN
"The most painful moment was knowing what my daughter went through in the last moments of her life. But that is not the point of the trial, the point is that we have understood who Filippo Turetta is", says Gino Cecchettin , during a break in the trial. "In fact, his lawyer now wants to understand more, but for me it is very clear. What emerges today is that the life of others is a sacred thing, and we must not get into the merits of the lives of others".
After the break, Cecchettin did not return to the courtroom when the hearing resumed. Before leaving the courthouse, he stopped again with reporters. On the fact that Turetta never met his gaze, he replied laconically: "Ask him." His face lit up only when he was asked to remember Giulia, a year after her disappearance: "My love, Giulia," he said with a smile.
ELENA CECCHETTIN
If Gino, Giulia's father, is present in the courtroom, his daughter Elena, Giulia Cecchettin's sister, is not. "Today and Monday, October 28, I will not be present in the courtroom. Not out of disinterest, but to take care of myself. I have been having nightmares for more than 11 months, 11 months that my sleep has been non-existent or restless. My mental health and especially my physical health have suffered. I have lost count of the medical visits I have had to do in the last year," she writes in a story on Instagram. "I will follow remotely also through my lawyers, however I will not participate," she adds.
(Unioneonline/L)