A naturalised Italian citizen, Said Mechaout, 27, born in Morocco, has confessed to the murder, which happened on the banks of the river Po in Turin on February 23. He said he had been waiting to kill a white Italian around his own age, Il Giornale reported.
“I hit a white person, based on the obvious fact that a young Italian would have caused a sensation,” he told police officers. “I looked at him and I was sure he was Italian. I wanted to kill a guy like me, take away all the promises he had, children, remove him from his friends and relatives,” Mechaout explained.
The Moroccan-born immigrant gave the details of the murder: “I sat on a bench. I smoked a couple of cigarettes. People were passing by. I chose that place because you can run away immediately.”
He said he had been waiting for someone who looked “happy” to murder when Stefano Leo passed by him wearing headphones and sunglasses. As Leo was walking up the stairs to the street, unaware of the danger, Mechaout jumped out and stabbed Leo in the throat. He told investigators that he had bought a set of knives and chose the murder weapon from the set.
Born in Khourigba in Morocco, he was naturalized an Italian following adoption. Last Sunday he handed himself over to the Carabinieri of Turin confessing to the crime. He said that if he remained at liberty he would kill again. He could hear voices in his head.
After a long interrogation, the knife was recovered. He bought the set of knives at a discount store in the suburbs, for 10 euros.
He recounted the grisly end of the white Italian. “I saw that he was trying to breathe. He collapsed after making the stairs, trying to get some air. He knelt and then fell to the ground.”
Mechaout eventually turned himself in to police because voices in his head had instructed him to kill again.
He said he stabbed Leo in the throat because he had wanted him dead. “That is the surest way to kill. If you hit him from the back he is less sure, even if you take him to the lung you are not sure to kill him.”
According to Italian investigators, the jobless Mechaout’s girlfriend in Turin had recently left him.
“I also thought about killing myself. Mother nature was trying to get me killed and then I thought about killing. I said that I could have Turin pay for what is in Turin.”
Mechaquat waited for Leo at the top of the Lungo Po Machiavelli promenade at the river. Stefano Leo, originally from Biella, had traveled the world in search of adventure before arriving in Turin.
Leo had graduated in law, but did not want to become a lawyer. He had told his childhood friend, with whom he shared accommodation, that Turin gave him positive energy. “It’s a nice place to live in.” Last December he had found work as a salesman in a chic shop in the center of K-way.