The defense lawyer of confessed
torturer and murderer Manuel Foffo said Wednesday his client
told a preliminary investigations judge during an eight-hour
interrogation that accomplice Marco Prato gave victim Luca
Varani the death blow.
Law student Foffo, 29, has confessed to torturing and
murdering Varani, 23, along with fellow student Prato during a
two-day cocaine-fueled party at the weekend. He said the pair
finished off Varani with knife and hammer blows after beating
and torturing him.
"Foffo confirmed that Prato used the knife," lawyer Michele
Andreano said. Foffo also named many witnesses who came and went
from the apartment where the crime took place, the lawyer said.
Andreano also said Foffo confirmed the pair spent
1,500-1,600 euros on 26 grams of cocaine.
However Prato's defence lawyer denied his client inflicted
the final blow. "Marco Prato did not... stab Varani in the
heart," said lawyer Pasquale Bartolo.
On Tuesday, Foffo told prosecutors he does not believe
himself capable of committing such a crime.
"There was a time when I wanted to harm somebody," Foffo
said. "I don't know how this idea took shape within me. Although
I had the thought in the past... I never thought it could become
reality. I do not believe myself capable of doing such a thing".
Foffo went on to say that he and accomplice Marco Prato
drove around last Thursday night looking for "someone to kill".
"We didn't go through with our intent to harm somebody
because we didn't find anyone," Foffo said. "I don't remember
how long we drove around but I know we did cocaine during that
outing".
Foffo also told prosecutors he and Prato cut Varani's vocal
chords so he couldn't scream, and his accomplice finished him
off by stabbing him in the heart. They left the knife in the
body, and it was removed by the coroner.
They also tried to clean up the crime scene, prosecutors
said.
Varani's body was found naked in the bedroom of a
tenth-storey apartment in the Collatino area of eastern Rome on
Saturday evening. However, he is believed to have died the
previous morning.
Carabinieri police arrived at the scene only after Foffo,
the owner of the apartment, told his father what had happened.
Meanwhile Prato was taken to hospital after trying to
commit suicide by taking an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol
in a hotel in Rome's Piazza Bologna neighborhood. He underwent
stomach pumping and is now being held together with Foffo in
Rome's Regina Coeli prison.
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