The sentence to life imprisonment for Innocent Oseghale, 32-year-old Nigerian pusher, for the murder of Pamela Mastropietro, the 18-year-old from Rome killed and torn to pieces in Macerata on January 30, 2018, has been confirmed by the Court of Cassation . Her remains were found closed in two trolleys.
However, the supreme court annulled the appeal sentence with reference to the crime of sexual violence, which will be re-evaluated in a new trial in Perugia.
The judges partially accepted the appeal filed by the defense against the sentence of the Ancona Court of Assizes which, in October 2020, had confirmed the life sentence imposed on the accused in the first instance.
The knot on sexual violenceand the only point for which the Supreme Court is asking for a new trial: for the other charges, however, Oseghale’s responsibility has been definitively declared.
The overall sentence that he will have to serve, therefore, will be calculated only after the appeal-bis: if the aggravating circumstance of sexual violence is lacking in that case, the accused could have a penalty discount compared to life imprisonment.
“If the aggravating circumstance of sexual violence is not deemed to exist in Perugia, the sentence could drop to 30 years ,” lawyer Umberto Gramenzi, who defends Innocent Oseghale with his colleague Simone Matraxia, told the Ansa news agency.
“The relevant aspect from our point of view – continues the criminal lawyer – is that it was precisely the recognition of the aggravating circumstance of sexual violence that led to the sentence to life imprisonment before the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Ancona and on this point exclusively that the judges of Perugia will now have to pronounce “.
The Supreme Court has in fact rejected the appeal of the defenders of Oseghale in relation to the conviction for the crimes of voluntary homicide, insult and the destruction of a corpse.
” Pamela’s mother is embittered , for her this is a torture”, said the lawyer Marco Valerio Verni, lawyer of the family of Pamela Mastropietro together with Ippolita Naso.
“And a sentence that leaves a bad taste in our mouth, today they hoped today the end would come”, adds the lawyer.
“I’ve been waiting for justice for 4 years”, shouted Alessandra Verni , mother of Pamela Mastropietro, visibly moving away from the Supreme Court after the decision of the first criminal section to order a new trial, limited to the aggravating circumstance of sexual violence, for Innocent Oseghale , accused of the murder of his daughter.
“They kill, rape, tear to pieces, and the Italian state does nothing”, she added, also referring to the other investigation files on the affair that have been archived.
“I expect the maximum sentence for my daughter’s executioner, and I expect the institutions to put a hand on their conscience to reopen the investigation into Oseghale’s accomplices,” said Pamela’s mother before the sentence.
This morning at the hearing the Deputy Attorney General Maria Francesca Loy had asked for confirmation of the life sentence for Oseghale and to declare inadmissible the appeal presented by the defense, which instead was partially accepted by the supreme judges.
“The conduct of the accused and established, his cruelty and his coldness in washing the body with bleach and then cutting it into pieces were functional in not allowing traces to be found and hiding the evidence”, said the deputy attorney general who asked to confirm the life imprisonment inflicted in the first and second degree.
Also with regard to the aggravating circumstance of sexual violence, “the appeal sentence justifies the decision of the appellate judge in an unexceptionable manner – added the pg of Cassation -. The accused hid the sexual intercourse until his DNA was found “and” gave different versions, adapting them to the investigative findings gradually acquired “.
Among the civil parties formed in the proceedings, with the family members of Pamela Mastropietro, also the Municipality of Macerata.
At the time of the events Oseghale was 29 and the victim 18. Pamela, from Rome and the San Giovanni district, had run away from a community in Corridonia. She was trying to break free from drug addiction, but she was sick.
On January 29, 2018, she chooses to leave and leaves without a mobile phone or documents. She meets a man and he abuses him in exchange for a ride in the car. She also does a taxi driver. Hours go by and she, small and petite, misses the train to the capital and meets Oseghale.
The defendant takes her to his home and takes advantage of it. She maybe she offers him drugs in exchange for a report. Surely a friend of the man when he calls his cell phone hears a girl crying in the background. Then the end. Pamela is hit several times in her body with a knife, in the liver. She dies of bleeding.
Her body is torn apart and washed in bleach . At that point, two trolleys are prepared which will then be found in a road ditch in Pollenza, also in the province of Macerata. When the Carabinieri arrive, they find some parts of Pamela’s body in those closed cases.
