Milan prosecutors on Friday
opened an attempted murder investigation into the stabbing of an
Israeli Orthodox Jew on a Milan residential street last night.
Nathan Graff, 40, was stabbed several times in the back and
face while walking home last night by a hooded man who came up
behind him.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack and the
motive behind it is still unknown.
The chief investigator in the case is Adjunct Prosecutor
Maurizio Romanelli, who heads up a terrorism and politically
motivated crime division.
The victim underwent surgery at Milan's Niguarda Hospital.
He is out of danger, conscious, and will be able to talk to
investigators, hospital sources said.
The wounds were not life-threatening, they said.
Graff is married to a Milan-born teacher who is the daughter
of a rabbi, and they have a three-year-old girl together,
sources said Friday. The family has been living in Milan's Viale
San Gimignano where the knife attack took place for the past two
years. Graff moved to Italy after his marriage and is not very
fluent in Italian, according to people who know him.
In the wake of the stabbing, Milan authorities said they
would up security at Jewish sites in the city and its province.
The provincial committee for public order and public safety
met Friday and decided to "step up to the highest level the
system of general security, prevention and control of the local
territory as well as, specifically, raising the guard at Jewish
or Israel-linked targets".
Also on Friday, Premier Matteo Renzi expressed "all our
affection and friendship" for Milan's Jewish community and
voiced his deepest sympathy with the victim.
Politicians from across the spectrum and a Milanese Muslim
clergyman joined in the chorus of condemnation of the stabbing.
Luigi Zanda and Ettore Rosato, chief whips of Renzi's
Democratic Party (PD), denounced "an incident of extreme gravity
that must be condemned firmly and cannot go unpunished".
"We want to reiterate our profound indignation at an
episode that has all the signs of the anti-Semitic violence to
which other European countries are unfortunately not immune,"
the whips said in a joint statement.
Lorenzo Cesa, national secretary of the Union of the
Democratic Centre (UDC), for his part said "this is a grave
affront not just to the Jewish community but to the whole
western community".
Ferruccio de Bortoli and Roberto Jarach, president and vice
president of the Shoah memorial foundation in Milan, said that
"the fact must not be in anyway undervalued, it shows once again
how the seeds of hatred are still spread on a daily basis,
prejudices still are deeply rooted and violence exerts a
dangerous fascination".
The Imam of Segrate, Ali Abu Shwaima, said the stabbing "is
a vile act and must be condemned". He also told ANSA "let's not
create theories on the case, let's not accuse our community,
which has nothing to do with it".
The woman owner of a kosher restaurant near the scene of
the stabbing said her children cried themselves to sleep after
the attack.
"I am in shock," she said, "we are really scared".
Nevertheless she said the restaurant would stay open Friday.
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