Video of the attack was widely circulated on Italian news websites and social media, sparking outrage as Italy enters a parliamentary election campaign in which the right-wing coalition has already made immigration an issue. “The killing of Alika Ogorchukwu is disappointing,” Enrico Letta, a former prime minister and head of the left-wing Democratic Party, tweeted on Saturday, referring to the salesman who died on Friday. “Unheard of ferocity. Pervasive indifference. There can be no excuse.” Right-wing leader Matteo Salvini, who is making security a campaign plank, also expressed his anger at the death, saying “security has no color and … must return to the right”. Ogorchukwu, 39, was selling goods on Friday on the main street of Civitanova Marche, a coastal town on the Adriatic Sea, when his assailant grabbed the vendor’s crutch and beat him, police said. The video shows the attacker wrestling the victim to his back on the pavement as he fought back, eventually subduing Ogorchukwu with his body weight. “The assailant chased the victim, first hitting him with a crutch. He made him fall to the ground, then he finished, causing death, by striking repeatedly with his bare hands,” police investigator Matteo Luconi told a press conference. He later told Italian news channel Sky TG24 that onlookers called the police, who responded after the suspect fled and tried to give aid to the victim. An autopsy will determine whether death was caused by blunt force trauma, suffocation or another cause. Police used street cameras to track the attacker’s movements and arrested a man identified as Filippo Claudio Giuseppe Ferlazzo, 32. He was being held on suspicion of murder and theft for allegedly taking the victim’s phone. Luconi said the assailant attacked when the vendor made “insistent” requests for pocket change. Police were interviewing witnesses and reviewing video footage of the attack. They said the suspect has not made a statement. Ogorchukwu, who was married with two children, resorted to selling goods on the street after he was hit by a car and lost his job as a laborer due to his injuries, said Daniel Amanza, who heads the migrant union ACSIM in the Marche region. Province of Macerata. Amanza gave a different version of what happened, saying the assailant became enraged when Ogorchukwu told the man’s partner that she was beautiful. “That compliment killed him,” Amanza told The Associated Press. “The tragic fact is that there were a lot of people around. They turned around saying ‘Stop,’ but no one moved to separate them,” Amanza said. Macerata was the site of a 2018 shooting targeting African migrants that injured six people. Luca Traini, 31, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the shooting, which Italy’s highest court confirmed was a hate crime. The mayor of Civitanova Marche, Fabrizio Ciarapica, met with members of the Nigerian community after hundreds of protests on Saturday. “My conviction is not only for the (crime) but it is also for the indifference,” Ciarapica told Sky. “This is something that has shocked the citizens.” Former prime minister Matteo Renzi, who leads his own small party, called on political leaders to “tool” the attack. “I’m scared of this election climate,” he said on social media. “A father was killed in a horrific and racist manner while bystanders took video without stopping the attacker. And instead of reflecting on what we are becoming, politicians argue and use tools.”
