The sentence was confirmed as life imprisonment with one year of solitary confinement and no sentence reduction.
This was the request made this morning by the Attorney General of Cagliari, Luigi Patronaggio, at the second-degree trial of truck driver Igor Sollai, accused of the murder of his wife Francesca Deidda.
Before the Court of Appeal, presided over by Judge Giovanni Lavena, with counsel Dario De Luca as his assistant, the prosecution requested recognition of all the aggravating circumstances already present in the first-instance sentence (premeditation, death of the spouse, cruelty, and impaired defense) for the crime.
The woman's body was found inside a duffel bag in the woods along the former eastern Sardinian road.
The defendant, a 44-year-old currently in prison on charges of aggravated voluntary homicide and concealment of a corpse, was present in the courtroom. After months of maintaining that his wife had left voluntarily, once the evidence became overwhelming, he decided to confess, but he never produced either his legal weapon (a bricklayer's hammer) or his wife's cell phone.
Francesca Deidda vanished into thin air from San Sperate on May 10, 2024. After a long and complex investigation, her remains were found on July 18 in a duffel bag in the countryside between Sinnai and San Vito, near the old state road 125.
Sollai, Patronaggio recalled, had sought guidance on how to kill his wife, quickly hide a body, how to dig a grave, and how a victim would react if hit hard on the head. He even researched how to purchase cyanide.
The truck driver is being represented by lawyers Carlo Demurtas and Laura Pirarba. Francesca Deidda's brother, who joined the civil action with lawyer Gianfranco Piscitelli, was also present in court. The woman's other family members are being represented by lawyers Roberto Pusceddu and Pamela Marianna Piras.
In its argument, the defense did not contest the manner and gravity of the crime, but limited itself to appealing to the issue of aggravating circumstances, maintaining that there was no premeditation, impaired defense, or cruelty.
The judges have announced that they will enter the deliberation chamber today and the sentence will most likely be delivered today .
