A father hired a hitman to break his son’s fingers simply because he was gay. (Stock photograph via Elements Envato)
A father has been sentenced to two years in prison for hiring an assassin to break the fingers of his gay son simply because “he loves another man”.
The 75-year-old retiree paid a hitman €2,500 in April to attack his son, a 43-year-old surgeon, and his boyfriend. Neither the suspect nor the victims were identified by authorities.
“My son is a thug,” the father reportedly told the hitman. “Break his fingers.”
But the plot was thrown into disarray when the goon, after two weeks of stalking the victim and slashing his car tires, decided the attack was “senseless”, according to a local activist group, via La Repubblica.
He decided to betray the father and revealed the plan to the son.
The father was charged with aggravated assault and stalking by law enforcement in Turin, Italy.
The alleged plot was no isolated incident – he had previously hired goons to beat his son’s partner in February. The boyfriend was rushed to the hospital requiring treatment after the attack.
Animosity had festered between the father and son for years, the police said. When the son came out to his father, he tersely said: “Too bad for the grandchildren,” and denounced him.
Four years ago, at a beach house in France, the son sought to reel in his father as he physically fought with his mother.
The father, as a result, threatened to break the son’s legs – but not before filing a police report claiming he was the victim and that his son had removed some of his teeth during a scuffle. This never occurred, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors added that the son and his mother, ensnared in a culture of fear fostered by the father, had “well-founded fear for their safety and that of the people connected to them, forcing them to alter their habits”. The mother eventually separated from her husband after 42 years of marriage.
The son often changed the locks on his property and travelled with friends for protection, fearing he was being tailed. “Apart from the patients I knew, I was afraid to make visits, never knowing who I might meet,” he added.
In a Facebook post, Turin LGBT+ campaign group Arcigay Torina wrote: “The ruling leads to the closure of a tormented path, in which a parent has become executioner towards their child because they love another man.
“Arcigay Turin expresses all his solidarity with the victim: no person should live in fear due to their sexual orientation and gender identity.”
The group said the case illustrates why lawmakers in Italy must urgently plug the gaps in the country’s stringy anti-discrimination legislation that punishes racial, ethnic and religious hate crimes, among others, but not anti-LGBT+ attacks.
The Italian parliament is currently considering an LGBT+ hate crime bill that would bring it in line with its European neighbours, but far-right parties and religious leaders have expressed virulent opposition to it.