Life sentence upheld in murder of Bacca

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

This file photo shows Italian artist Pippa Bacca during a visit to the Grand Bazaar. Hürriyet photo

The Court of Appeals has upheld a life sentence for a Turkish man found guilty of the 2008 rape and murder of Italian artist and peace activist Pippa Bacca, noting that he was detached from human values and felt no remorse for his deeds, Anatolia news agency reported yesterday.

The Court’s First Chamber, which handled the case, rejected objections from the defense that the victim had engaged in consensual sex with the man found guilty of her rape and murder, 42-year-old Murat Karataş, and that the lower court’s ruling was based on an incomplete assessment of the case. The court found that Karataş did not express any true remorse for the crime and failed to cooperate with the investigation, pointing especially to the facts that the assailant was captured after he took Bacca’s mobile phone and used it following the murder, and he refused to shed any light on the identity of a second man whose sperm was found on the victim’s clothes.

Pippa Bacca was the pseudonym of 33-year-old painter Giuseppina Pasqualina di Marineo. When she was killed she had been on a hitchhiking trip with a friend from Italy to Israel as part of their “Brides on Tour” project, a plea for peace in areas of conflict. She went missing in April 2008 after separating from her friend with plans to meet later in Beirut. Her naked body was found in a forest near the town of Gebze.
The murder caused a huge public outcry and a great deal of soul-searching in Turkey. Since then, many commemorations and cultural activities, including a documentary film, have been dedicated to Bacca.