“I was tired, I defended myself,” Makka Sualev said Friday evening, still in shock after being taken to the barracks for the murder of her father, Akhyad Sualev, 50. A worker of Chechen origin, the man moved to Italy the same year with his family to live in Nizza Monferrato, in the Asti region. “I intervened to defend my mother,” declared the 19-year-old young man, who however tried to clarify: “I just wanted him to hurt him, not to kill him,” reports Il Messaggero. The young girl revealed in detail to investigators what happened after yet another argument at home: “Dad chased me and hit me. Mom tried to defend me. And he started slapping her again too. He was an expert in karate and martial arts, he knew where to hit us so the bruises wouldn't show. But he still beat us. I didn't want him to do that.”
A few hours before this argument, the young girl explained that her father had resigned: “For the umpteenth time, he had lost his job as a mason – reports Corriere della Sera – and then he went to the restaurant. The one where mom works as a dishwasher and I help out as a waitress on the weekends. He asked my mother to stop. She told him no”, worried about the increasingly complicated economic prospects for the family, after the man lost his last job. At home, the argument continues, even with violence: “It wasn't new . Dad always hit us, in Chechnya, when I was younger, it was even worse. He always practiced martial arts, knew boxing and karate. He mainly attacked us. But with my brothers, he only raised his hand if they intervened in discussions.” When the 19-year-old stabbed her father, her brothers aged 14, 11 and 10 were also in the house. They were in another room with a teacher who gave them private lessons. And she was the one who called for help and then took the three children away.
Violence at home was commonplace. Akhyad Sualev was obsessed with controlling the women of the family, he wanted to know their every move and above all command them. In particular, the man would not have tolerated the idea of his 19-year-old daughter living with more freedom: “The father was very religious – explains to Corriere the lawyer who assists the 19-year-old, Massimiliano Sfolcini – he followed to the letter the precepts of the Muslim religion. But Makka grows up with a different and more open consciousness, especially with regard to the figure of women. She also wanted her father to respect women, especially her and her mother.”
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