Police on Monday arrested an unemployed 40-year-old Moroccan who allegedly knifed his Italian wife to death on Monday in the northwestern town of Asti.
Neighbours called police after hearing 47-year-old Anna Carlucci's screams inside the couple's apartment but she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police found Rahhal Fantasse inside the apartment, his hands covered in blood and recovered knife he allegedly used to kill his wife. She had worked as a home help.
Carlucci's elderly father, who had been injured by Fantasse as he tried to defend his daughter from attack, was also present at the murder scene and had a knife wound to one of his hands.
The couple's nine-year-old daughter was at school at the time of Carlucci's slaying. Neighbours described the family as "quiet".
If he is convicted of Carlucci's murder, Fantasse will not be the first Moroccan immigrant to have killed his wife in Italy.
In April, another jobless 40-year-old, Abdelhadi Lahmar, killed his 30-year-old wife Touria Errebaibi with an axe and slit his seven-year-old daughter's throat at the family's apartment in Pordenone in the northeast.
In June last year, 37-year-old mechanic Tarik Es Sabry stabbed his Italian wife Monica Timore to death at the couple's home near the eastern Sicilian port city of Catania then hanged himself. The couple's five-year-old son was visiting his grandparents at the time.
