Stasi sentenced to 16 years for girlfriend's murder

(ANSA) - Milan, December 17 - Milan's appeals court on Wednesday found Alberto Stasi guilty of the 2007 murder of his girlfriend Chiara Poggi and sentenced him to 16 years in jail.
    Stasi was twice acquitted of the murder before the Supreme Court overturned those rulings and ordered a repeat of the appeals-level trial. The Milan court also ordered Stasi to pay one million euros in damages to Poggi's family, 350,000 euros to each of her parents and 300,000 to her brother Marco. The verdict was hotly awaited at the so-called Garlasco case, referring to the northern town where the 26-year-old was killed, is one of a series of high-profile murders to have horrified and gripped the Italian public in recent years. Stasi claimed he found Poggi's lifeless body at her family home on August 13, 2007, the day after the couple had had dinner there together.
    Stasi claimed that after dinner, he left his fiance'e at her parents' home and went to sleep at his own house.
    He returned the next day because Poggi wasn't answering her phone, only to find the front door open and her lifeless body lying in a pool of blood.
    Prosecutors said crime scene evidence contradicted with this testimony.
    Had he indeed walked up the villa's steps as he said, his shoes would have been covered in blood, prosecutors said.