Vigilantism: Handbag Thief Migrant Killed in Italy by SUV-Driving Victim

An illegal migrant living off petty theft was run over four times and killed after he stole the bag of an Italian beach club owner, a court has heard as it considers a charge of homicide.

Italian woman Cinzia Dal Pino, 65, who has been described as a well known and wealthy owner of a beach club in local media reportage of a sensational case from Viareggio, Tuscany, Italy, stands accused of murder after she took extraordinary action to get her possessions back after being robbed.

The Italian court heard how 47-year-old Algerian-heritage migrant Said Malkoun had allegedly held Dal Pino up at knifepoint while she was at the wheel of her white Mercedes SUV, stealing her handbag from her car seat. Dal Pino allegedly feared her house keys were still in the bag and was concerned the man would use them, reports Today Italy, and so drove into the migrant after the incident on the evening of September 8th.

Having pinned Malkoun to a storefront, Dal Pino is said to have subsequently reversed and drove over him again. After being run over by the vehicle four times, Malkoun died of his wounds. The defendant was able to recover her possessions, however, and was able to continue on her journey, but not before returning to the restaurant she had dined earlier that evening to return a courtesy umbrella.

The court is reported to have questioned why Dal Pino didn’t report the theft, or the injuries to the assailant, to the emergency services. While she excused the initial lack of communication down to the fact her mobile phone was in the handbag the Algerian had stolen, her subsequent silence on the subject — even while returning the borrowed umbrella — went unanswered.

Prosecutors are pushing for a charge of homicide. Dal Pino does not deny driving into the man but says she intended to disable, not kill. She told the judge she drove into the man: “Only to stop him because he had stolen my bag. I wanted to hit him in the legs so he wouldn’t run away”.

She was initially held in a local prison but has been released to house arrest for the duration of the trial. She will have to wear an electronic tracking bracelet because, the judge said, she posed a risk of reoffending.

Local outlet L’eco Della Lunigiana notes the slain Algerian had no residence permit for Italy and sustained himself in the country through crime. Attempts had been made to deport him, but as no other country would admit he was their citizen, these had failed. Greece’s Protothema suggests this may be because the man had lived under an assumed identity and may not have been Said Malkoun, or an Algerian, at all.

Italian populist politician Matteo Salvini courted some outrage, with leftist activists accusing him of excusing the crime, when he responded to the court case this week. He wrote: “The death of a person is always a tragedy and justice must take its course. This tragedy, however, is the consequence of a crime: if the man who lost his life had not been a criminal, it would not have ended like this.”