Bellinzona region: woman held after stabbing husband in the face

It was late June when a woman from the Bellinzona region stabbed her husband in the face with a knife, in a car parked beneath their home. The cut, between his cheek and ear, was almost ten centimetres long.

The man did not react at first and did not report the incident. A few days after the attack, he even drove her to the airport so she could leave on holiday. Until then, the episode had had no legal consequences. It came to light after a friend of the man's, having seen the wound, alerted the police. The case was reported by Swiss broadcaster RSI.

The 42-year-old woman was arrested at Milan Malpensa airport, in Italy, when she returned from her holiday. She spent about a month in Milan's San Vittore prison before being extradited, in mid-August, to La Farera prison in Ticino. She remains in custody and is represented by lawyer Niccolò Giovanettina.

The main charge against her is attempted murder, which she denies.

Two conflicting accounts

According to her account, she had persuaded her husband to leave the house and get into the car only to avoid continuing the argument in front of their daughter. The knife, she says, was already in the car because she had used it by the pool to cut a watermelon. She says she grabbed it in the heat of the moment, as an act of self-defence.

The man, represented by lawyer Elio Brunetti, tells a different story: he says it was a genuine ambush.

To establish which version is correct, public prosecutor Luca Losa has ordered forensic medical examinations. Depending on the results, a psychiatric evaluation of the woman could also follow.

Tensions between the couple had been running high for some time. In the preceding months, police had already intervened several times to calm things down.