Ghanaian pickaxe murderer gets 20 years again

(ANSA) - Milan, January 20 - A Ghanaian migrant who attacked and killed three passers-by with a pickaxe in Milan on May 11, 2013, had a 20-year prison term upheld by a Milan appeals court Tuesday.
    Mada 'Adam' Kabobo was first convicted on April 15, 2014 after a fast-track trial in which he was deemed to be mentally semi-infirm.
    The appeals court confirmed this assessment.
    Kabobo was judged fit to stand trial in October 2013 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.
    Kabobo's defence 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, had described his initial sentence as "insufficient".
    Relatives of the victims are suing 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.