The man arrested for injuring Anna Laura Valsecchi, 43, in Milan is called Vincenzo Lanni and is 59 years old. The man was found in a hotel in the Lombardy capital in possession of items of clothing corresponding to those worn during the attack. From an initial reconstruction, no links emerged between the victim and the attacker, who was responsible for a similar episode in 2015.
ANSA AgencyA stab from bottom to top, a sudden and violent blow. In the back and for no apparent reason. This is how Anna Laura Valsecchi, a 43-year-old employee of Finlombarda, was attacked early in the morning a stone’s throw from the office in Piazza Gae Aulenti, the heart of the brand new ‘smart district’ of Milan that managers and professionals pass through every day to go to work.
Video Woman stabbed in Milan, the moment of the attack
Also injured in the chest and abdomen, the woman is hospitalized with a reserved prognosis at the Niguarda hospital, where she underwent a two-hour operation. A man is filmed by surveillance cameras.
A fifty-year-old, he has short, white hair. Backpack on his shoulders, a phosphorescent yellow bag in his right hand, he was wearing sports clothes and sneakers at the time of the attack, filmed by security cameras. Images released by the military in the hope of giving a name to the attacker, now wanted for attempted murder, who immediately after hitting the woman walked away leaving the weapon used, a 30 centimeter kitchen knife, in his victim’s back.
“I saw her injured on the ground, she was screaming and asking for help – says a colleague in tears and in shock – It was terrible”.
A “chilling” scene as described by passers-by who raised the alarm upon seeing Anna Laura Valsecchi on the ground in a pool of blood. Warned by the police, a few minutes later her husband also arrived on his bicycle, having just enough time to see the 118 medics load it into the ambulance which then drove away with sirens blaring. The carabinieri of the Duomo company cordoned off the area and forensics began photographing the crime scene in search of clues. Numerous testimonies have been collected by the Army soldiers, although no one seems to have seen the precise moment in which the woman was hit. Other soldiers have begun to collect testimonies even though it seems that no one saw the precise moment in which Anna Laura was hit by that man with the hollow face, wearing a technical mountain jacket and dark trousers. Clothing that doesn’t make you think of a homeless person, as you often see, even in the center of Milan. For now, there doesn’t seem to be any motive: it’s difficult to find a person who hasn’t obtained a loan, given that in Finlombarda the woman deals with ‘credit disbursement’. Colleagues, interviewed by the Army, explain that he had no decision-making power. It wasn’t his role. She herself reportedly told the rescuers: “I don’t know who did it.” The hypothesis remains that the attacker struck at random, as last year in Chignolo d’Isola, in the province of Bergamo, where Sharon Verzeni was shot to death, for no reason, while jogging in the evening, by 31-year-old Moussa Sangare.
In contact with the police, the mayor of Milan, Giuseppe Sala, hopes that the attacker “will be brought to justice as soon as possible” and that the woman “can recover soon from the trauma and consequences of this event”. “Incidents of violence of this kind – he underlines – are not acceptable”. On the day of the release of the Il Sole 24 Ore Crime Index, which sees the Milan metropolitan area in first place for crimes reported to the judicial authorities by the police despite a 2% drop in 2024, there is political controversy over security. The president of the Lombardy Region, Attilio Fontana, speaks of “an affair that has troubled all of us”, while criticism of the actions of the Sala council comes from the centre-right opposition. “Minister Piantedosi is centre-right – is the reply of the majority – it is up to him to move”.
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