Tram driver keeps mum at Faoro murder hearing (3)

(ANSA) - Milan, February 9 - Alessandro Garlaschi, a 39-year-old tram driver accused of murdering 19-year-old Jessica Valentina Faoro and trying to burn her body in Milan, exercised his right to remain silent before a preliminary investigations judge Friday. Garlaschi had also remained silent with prosecutors after he was arrested earlier this week.
    Judge Anna Calabi is expected to shortly confirm his arrest and remand him in custody in a jail.
    Garlaschi was placed under surveillance in a neuropsychiatry ward on Thursday.
    Garlaschi was jailed Wednesday and effectively confessed to the murder during police questioning, investigators said.
    The man reportedly told the prosecutor on the case, Cristiana Roveda, and Milan police, coordinated by Alessandro Garlaschi, that Jessica fought against him but he "turned around the knife" he was holding and "stabbed her in the stomach" after she rejected his sexual advances.
    The 19-year-old was found stabbed to death in an apartment in Milan's via Brioschi early on Wednesday.
    The evidence against the tram driver, who lives in the same apartment building with his wife, is "overwhelming," judicial sources said.