Govt OKs bill clamping down on gender violence

(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 8 - The government on Wednesday night approved a bill clamping down on gender violence after a recent string of headline-grabbing of femicides in Italy.
    Late last month a man killed his seven-month pregnant girlfriend near Milan after she objected to his affair with another woman, while in Rome a woman police officer was shot dead by a colleague she had had a relationship with, after which he shot himself.
    According to official figures, femicides are up significantly this year while the overall homicide rate has dropped.
    Cabinet approved a bill with a package of measures whose thurst, as Family and Equal Opportunities Minister Eugenia Roccella explained, is prevention "to interrupt the cycle of violence" and to "act promptly and effectively", so much so that there will be a request to parliament for an urgent reading of the bill.
    The package includes new restraining orders and heightened surveillance on men guilty of domestic violence, among other things.
    It also boosts the emergency gender violence hotline.
    The house in Senago, near Milan, where on Saturday 27 May, Alessandro Impagnatiello stabbed to death Giulia Tramontana, his seven-months-pregnant fiancée, was perfectly tidy and clean, so much so that the many traces found during the inspection Tuesday were identified thanks to luminol, police said Wednesday.
    The case is continuing to claim headlines as further grisly and shocking details emerge.
    Impagnatiello twice tried to dispose of the body by burning it but ended up storing it in his house, all the while sending apparently urgent texts asking her to get in touch with him.
    (ANSA).