A banal and dangerous game that ended in tragedy. This is Mohssine Azhar's explanation of the death of little Fatima, three years old, the daughter of her partner, who fell off the fourth floor of a building in Turin and died after a few hours in hospital.
"I used to play with her on the balcony. I threw her in the air and took her back, with her mother watching us from underneath. I don't know how it could have happened," Agostino Pasquariello told the investigating judge during the guarantee interrogation.
The man, arrested for murder, admitted that he drank a few drinks and took hashish, but reiterated that he "never lost his clarity", until he realized that the little girl had fallen.
Yesterday in front of the prosecutor the man, of Moroccan origin, burst into tears, saying he loved the child very much and admitting his "carelessness".
"There is no peace," said his lawyer, Alessandro Sena, who met him in the Vallette prison in the morning. "Now that he is alone he is metabolizing the tragedy - he added - and he is upset. Let's not forget that he learned of the death of the child, whom he loved as a daughter, a few minutes before being questioned by the prosecutor".
THE FACTS - The little girl would have reached her stepfather's house by herself, which is located above the one where she lived with her mother, wearing her pajamas and non-slip socks on her feet. The man, who was drinking with some friends, would take her in his arms and go to the balcony to greet Mum Lucia, downstairs on the balcony. Then that tragic game, under the eyes of the mother.
The prosecutor Valentina Sellaroli asked for the validation of the detention for voluntary murder with possible fraud and the precautionary measure. Mohssine's defender, Alessandro Sena, instead asked to change the crime hypothesis into manslaughter and therefore the non-validation of the arrest and no precautionary measures, as there would be no danger of escape.
IL CORDOGLIO - Also this morning, in the meantime, at the entrance of the building in via Milano, the site of the tragedy, several people brought bouquets of flowers for little Fatima. White flowers that accumulate near the door.
"We heard and read what happened and were very impressed," said a couple of street vendors who arrived from the nearby Porta Palazzo market.
Fatima's mother Lucia, who has another older child, does not answer the intercom. "She's not here, she's not at home, we haven't seen her since that damned evening. She must have gone to some relatives, or perhaps friends," says a neighbor. The condominiums ask "to be left alone".
"It's a bad story, but we know nothing and have nothing to do with it."
(Unioneonline / L)
