Adnkronos (Adnkronos) –
A crucial hearing is scheduled today in the femicide of Ilaria Sula, the 22-year-old student from Terni, studying Statistics at Sapienza University, killed on March 25, 2025, by her ex-boyfriend, Mark Antony Samson. The final stages of the trial are expected in the bunker courtroom of Rebibbia prison before the Third Assize Court of Rome, which will decide on the defendant's responsibility, a self-confessed offender, and on the aggravating circumstances alleged by the Prosecutor's Office.
The first-instance ruling is expected today, after the replies and the deliberation chamber.
"Mark Samson never regretted what he did because he continued to believe that Ilaria deserved to meet that end," said prosecutor Maria Perna during her replies in court, in which the prosecution reiterated its reconstruction of the crime and the request for a life sentence already advanced by the Rome Prosecutor's Office.
"I still remember that body in the ravine and the condition it was in," the magistrate stated, emphasizing that, in her opinion, Samson never fully told the truth and continued to lie to avoid admitting premeditation. "This was not a crime of impulse," Perna remarked, disputing the thesis put forward by the defendant's defense.
Samson is charged with voluntary homicide aggravated by premeditation, frivolous motives, and an emotional relationship with the victim, as well as concealment of a corpse.
According to the prosecution, the crime was planned and executed coldly.
The defense, represented by attorneys Paolo Foti and Alessandro Pillitu, disagreed. In previous hearings, they requested that the alleged aggravating circumstances be ruled out and mitigating circumstances be recognized. They argued that the crime was a rash one, committed in a context of anger and tension, and emphasized the defendant's cooperation with investigators after his confession.
Ilaria Sula was killed in the Samson family home on Via Homs, in Rome's Africano neighborhood, with three stab wounds to the neck. The young woman had spent the night with her ex-boyfriend after dropping off some personal belongings. The relationship had ended a few weeks earlier, but according to the prosecution's reconstruction, Samson had refused to accept her decision.
After the murder, the body was hidden in a suitcase and abandoned in a remote area between Capranica Prenestina and Guadagnolo. The body was found on April 2, 2025, after days of searching. Samson confessed to the crime and told investigators where he had left the body.
The defendant's mother, Leonora Soleman Manlapaz, has already been convicted in the case, having pleaded guilty to two years in prison for complicity in the concealment of the body.
On the anticipated day of sentencing, outside the Rebibbia prison bunker, the university community to which Ilaria belonged also spoke out. Sapienza students read a letter addressed to the young woman's parents, Gezime and Flamur Sula, to express their sympathy for the family and remember the girl beyond the judicial news.
"The pain you felt is inexplicable, seeing the only thing worth living for taken away from you: a daughter. But all this pain is not in vain; it is a force that must be transformed into justice, that must bring to life Ilaria's name, which resonates in your and our hearts every day," the students wrote.
In the words of her classmates, Ilaria is not just the victim of femicide nor a name in the court records, but a young woman with dreams, plans, and a future that was taken away from her. "We are students, peers, young people who see in Ilaria a part of themselves, of their dreams, of their future," the letter continues. "Ilaria is not just a name in the files: she is a presence that has walked with us these past months, a constant thought that has reminded us how precious, fragile, and sacred every single moment is," the message continues.
The letter concludes with a hug to the family and a commitment to keep the student's memory alive: "Ilaria's voice will resonate in every corridor, in every classroom, in each of us, because she is and will be part of our community, which will carry her name high, forever."
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