The trial of Giuseppe Demurtas, the 64-year-old indicted on charges of femicide and attempted murder, will start on June 23 in Cagliari, in the Court of Assizes.
The story dates back to 2 August 2017 when a fire devastated the house where the man lived with his wife, the 59-year-old nurse Anna Maria Merola. The woman was dead and according to the Prosecutor's Office it was not a short circuit linked to the malfunctioning of the air conditioning system that triggered the flames, but the murderous will of her husband, perhaps because the victim, disabled, was a burden for him.
The attempted murder instead concerns the two children and their girlfriends, all of them were in the house at the time of the stake. The gup Lucia Perra also indicted one of the children, the 30-year-old Roberto Demurtas, who is charged with the crime of mistreating his mother for allegedly harassing behavior that took place between May 2016 and August 2017.
The 59-year-old, who had long had walking problems, was unable to escape from the flames: she had suffocated. The fire brigade had found her lying on the steps leading to the first floor, near the stairlift, with her feet facing the ground floor.
During the preliminary hearing, the prosecutor Paolo De Angelis recalled the testimonies on the alleged mistreatment and the technical advice of the Ris of the carabinieri who would have identified traces of an oil derivative near one of the air conditioners. For the prosecutor it could be flammable liquid.
The defense lawyers, Agostinangelo Marras and Lorenzo Perra, reject the hypothesis, believing instead that those traces come from the plastic material of the plant.
(Unioneonline / ss)