Italy shocked by video of fatal attack on African immigrant
- Alika Ogorchukwu was selling goods on Friday at a beach town on the Adriatic Sea, when his attacker grabbed his crutch and struck him police say
- Filippo Claudio Giuseppe Ferlazzo, 32, is being held on suspicion of murder and theft for allegedly taking the victim’s phone
Video footage of the attack has circulated widely on Italian news websites and social media, eliciting outrage as Italy enters a parliamentary election campaign in which the right-wing coalition has already made immigration an issue.
“The murder of Alika Ogorchukwu is dismaying,’’ Enrico Letta, a former premier and the head of the left-wing Democratic Party, wrote on Saturday on Twitter, naming the vendor who died on Friday. “Unheard of ferocity. Widespread indifference. There can be no justification.”
Right-wing leader Matteo Salvini, who is making security a plank of his campaign, also expressed outrage over the death, saying “security has no colour and … needs to return to being a right.”
Ogorchukwu, 39, was selling goods on Friday on the main street of Civitanova Marche, a beach town on the Adriatic Sea, when his attacker grabbed the vendor’s crutch and struck him down, according to police. Video shows the assailant wrestling the victim onto his back on the pavement as he fought back, eventually subduing Ogorchukwu with the weight of his body.
“The aggressor went after the victim, first hitting him with a crutch. He made him fall to the ground, then he finished, causing the death, striking repeatedly with his bare hands,’’ police investigator Matteo Luconi told a press conference.
