Ghanaian pickaxe murderer sentenced to 20 years

(ANSA) - Milan, April 15 - A Ghanaian migrant who attacked and killed three passers-by with a pickaxe in Milan on May 11, 2013, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday following a fast-track trial in which he was deemed to be mentally semi-infirm.
    Mada 'Adam' Kabobo was judged fit to stand trial last October despite suffering from "schizophrenic psychosis" after he killed pensioner Ermanno Masini, 64, unemployed 40-year-old Alessandro Carole' and 21-year-old Daniele Carella in the early morning rampage. Kabobo's ability to control his actions was "greatly diminished but not totally absent" and he was sufficiently "able to understand" what he was doing to face murder charges, psychiatrists said at the time.
    Two other people were injured in Kabobo's hour-long string of attacks before he was stopped by police.
    On Tuesday preliminary hearings judge Manuela Scudieri also sentenced Kabobo to three years in a care and surveillance centre after prison and ordered compensation for the victims' families. Kabobo's defense lawyers, who had requested his acquittal on grounds of total infirmity, said they would appeal against the sentence. They have already lodged a petition with the supreme Court of Cassation for the Ghanaian to be transferred to a judicial psychiatric hospital in order to receive more appropriate care. Andrea Masini, son of the victim Ermanno Masini, described Tuesday's sentence as "insufficient".
    Meanwhile, relatives of the victims were expected to sue the interior ministry for compensation on grounds Kabobo, who came to Italy illegally in 2011 and was later served an expulsion order, does not officially own anything.