An Italian man who tried to strangle his wife was acquitted on Thursday of sleepwalking after a court ruled he was not aware of his actions at the time, Italian media reported, citing AFP.

On the night of January 4, 2021, a 60-year-old resident of Braone, a mountain village in Lombardy (north), was awakened by his wife, who tried to loosen her grip on his neck by biting him.

“I didn’t want to, I was asleep,” the accused kept repeating during the trial in the Brescia court.

“I thought that these were thieves who broke into our house, and that he (her husband) and my son had already suffered the worst,” the victim testified. When she recognized her attacker, she saw the man “in a trance.”

He jumped off the floor

When he woke up, he suddenly realized that he had drunk, freed his wife and jumped out of the 3rd floor window, getting seriously injured.

The victim, who insisted she had never been abused by him, did not become a civil party. The couple is now divorced.

Experts recognized this version as plausible, which the prosecutor also agreed with. “He was not conscious,” concluded the attorney general in his last word, despite doubts that the accused lacked discretion and will.

Lawyer Maria Christina Sandrini claimed that her client is not criminally responsible. “My client’s (psychophysiological) state completely changed that night,” she claimed.

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