A bag thief who was run over and killed by an Italian socialite was a known criminal who police had previously tried to deport, it has emerged.
Businesswoman Cinzia Dal Pino, 65, took brutal revenge after the man identified as Moroccan national Nourdine Naziki, 52, grabbed her handbag from the open window of her car.
Shocking CCTV footage leaked to local media shows the moment Dal Pino then chased down Naziki and ran him over four times with her Mercedes SUV.
In a bizarre twist, rather than calling police or paramedics, Dal Pino then calmly returned to the restaurant where she had been dining with friends before the attack to bring back an umbrella she had borrowed, local media reports.
Naziki’s family in Morocco has now spoken of their horror at the incident, saying that justice must be served and slamming Italian authorities for placing Dal Pino under house arrest rather than in jail.
‘Not even an animal is killed in this way,’ his sisters told Moroccan channel Chouf TV, adding: ‘We ask for justice for our brother, Cinzia Dal Pino must remain in prison.’
Dal Pino has been charged with voluntary homicide and is wearing an electronic ankle tag as she remains under house arrest.
Her lawyer Enrico Marzaduri said that his client is agonising over what happened and did not intend to kill Naziki, and had only wanted to stop him making off with her bag and belongings.
‘She didn’t want to kill,’ he said, adding that what happened ‘went beyond her wishes. She feared that the man could have used her house keys and documents in her bag.’
He added that she worried that her keys and personal information would be used by the robber to carry out more crimes against her.
Police had been monitoring Naziki in the lead up to his death and had wanted to repatriate him, but authorities had not responded to their requests, meaning he had remained at large in Viareggio.
Dal Pino, a well known socialite in the Italian coastal city, was identified through her SUV’s number plate and arrested by police just hours later.
In video of the ramming attack, Naziki is seen walking past a shop front when Dal Pino’s vehicle suddenly appears and slams into him at speed.
The car then reverses back and forwards four times before Dal Pino – in high heeled shoes – is seen calmly getting out of her car, picking up her bag and driving away.
Paramedics were called to the scene and Naziki was rushed to hospital but he later died from his injuries.
Dal Pino admitted to police she had chased after him and had only wanted to get her bag back.
She told police: ‘He had threatened to kill me with a knife. I was scared. I didn’t mean to kill him I just wanted my belongings back.
‘There were important documents in my bag and I couldn’t call the police because my phone was in there.’
Officers later revealed no knife had been found on Naziki and Dal Pino was initially held in jail on suspicion of manslaughter before being freed under house arrest.
Her lawyer Enrico Marzaduri dismissed the video and said: ‘I understand from the autopsy that it was certainly the initial impact that proved fatal and there are no tyre marks on the body.
‘She just wanted to stop him and was aiming for his legs. She is suffering for what she did and is feeling remorse for what happened.’
But the local archbishop monsignor Paolo Giulietti said: ‘Other than self-defence, the video shows astonishing behaviour.
‘How do you drive your car over a person’s body several times? How could we think that a quiet and esteemed lady, a capable entrepreneur, could carry out such an action?
‘Evil wins when it makes us evil: those who rejoice because this episode would be an episode of self-defence demonstrate how evil wins.
‘I say, let’s not rejoice, this is not self-defence, and it is not justice. Nothing, absolutely nothing can justify murder.
‘Not just because we live in a state of law. But because every person, in every situation they find themselves in, has the right to live.’
Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini took a different view and wrote on Facebook: ‘This drama is the consequence of a crime. If the man who lost his life hadn’t been a delinquent this wouldn’t have happened.’
Naziki’s family said of the 52-year-old, who had lived in Italy for 24 years: ‘He was a good man and we want justice. Everyone who knows him will tell you that. She ran over him four times and then just calmly drove off when he was dying and didn’t even ask for help.’
Meanwhile a banner has appeared on a building site in Viareggio that read: ‘Who has money has power, the law is not equal for everyone.’