32-year-old Filippo Claudio Giuseppe Ferlazzo, has been arrested by the police over the brutal murder of 39-year-old Nigerian street-seller, Alika Ogorchukwu in Italy.
WITHIN NIGERIA had reported that Alika was beaten to death by an Italian man on the streets of Civitanova Marche city located in the Province of Macerata, Marche Region of Italy.
The Italian police said Ferlazzo was tracked down using street cameras after the vicious attack. The police say he is being held on suspicion of murder and theft, the latter for allegedly taking the victim’s phone when he fled.
According to the police, Ogorchukwu was selling goods at midday Friday on the main street of Civitanova Marche, a beach town on the Adriatic Sea coast, when an Italian man grabbed a crutch the street-seller used to walk and struck him down. Footage shows him being wrestled to the ground, despite attempts to fight back.
Police chief, Matteo Luconi, told Italian news channel Sky TG24 that onlookers called police, who responded to the scene after a suspect had fled and attempted to administer aid to the victim. It was not clear if he died at the scene. He said an autopsy will determine how he died.
Luconi told Sky TG24 that the assailant lashed out after the vendor made “insistent” requests for pocket change. He added that the police were questioning witnesses and had taken into evidence videos of the attack. They said the suspect has made no statements.
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 the injuries he suffered. The accident left him with a limp, and needing crutches, said Daniel Amanza, who runs the ACSIM, an association for immigrants in the Marche region’s Macerata province.
Amanza claimed the aggressor became infuriated when Ogorchukwu told the man’s companion she was beautiful.