Last Updated on September 16, 2020
Police say a pro-migrant Catholic priest from Northern Italy was brutally murdered by a Muslim Tunisian migrant after the migrant believed the priest was part of a plot to have him deported back to Northern Africa.
Father Roberto Malgesini was found stabbed multiple times to death, including one fatal stab wound on his neck, close to his home in Como.
According to Church Militant, the alleged suspect is homeless 53-year-old Tunisian Migrant Mahmoudi Ridha who said that “The priest died like a dog, that was right.”
Vatican News reported that Fr Malgesini, 51, knew his alleged killer and was conducting his morning routine, delivering aid to the needy in the small community of Beato Scalabrini. Ridha had reportedly waited for Malgesini outside of the rectory after purchasing a large kitchen knife before stabbing him in what appears to be a premeditated attack.
Ridha then walked around 400 yards, soaked in blood, to the nearest police station where he turned himself in. It was revealed that Fr Malgesini had previously supplied Ridha with assistance in the past.
Local bishops immediately declared that Ridha had been suffering with a mental illness at the time of the murder, although no “certified psychological problems” were discovered by investigators and Ridha did not have a history of mental illness.
The Tunisian had arrived to Italy in 1993. Shortly after his arrival, he married an Italian woman, granting him a residency permit which was later revoked when he divorced his wife.
Ridha was imprisoned in the past five years for evading local immigration laws numerous times. His deportation in 2017 was halted over an alleged eye problem and was further delayed over the coronavirus pandemic.
National File has previously reported on a few similarly tragic stories involving pro-migrant activists having their lives cut short by migrants in their care.
A local pro-migrant philanthropist was brutally murdered by a young Afghan migrant he was housing at his home in Normandy, Northern France, earlier this year.
Another woman–also from Normandy–was stabbed to death by a migrant she was sheltering at her apartment. It was later revealed that the pro-migrant activist had recently terminated a romantic relationship with her alleged killer.