A 67-year-old Irish man remains in critical condition at Marsala Hospital following a knife attack allegedly carried out by his son in Sicily.
Carabinieri police arrested the 32-year-old suspect on Friday, November 13, 2026, in the Piazza Libertà of Salemi after passersby reported seeing him walking through the streets with blood on his clothes.
When officers stopped the Belgian native for identification, he said that he was covered in blood because he had attacked his father with a knife shortly beforehand, Italian media reported.
Authorities subsequently went to the victim’s home and established that emergency responders had already transported the wounded man to the hospital.
Investigators searched the suspect’s home and seized a blood-stained switchblade as the suspected weapon.
The suspect was initially remanded in custody at Trapani prison following a court hearing. International cooperation and coordination by the Marsala Public Prosecutor’s Office then uncovered a history of previous incidents in several countries requiring local intervention.
Prosecutors ordered a forensic psychiatric assessment, which concluded that the suspect suffered from a severe psychotic disorder involving persecutory delusions and the misidentification of his father.
The report found that the man was not mentally competent at the time of the alleged attack and identified an ongoing risk to public safety requiring specialist treatment in a secure setting.
A judge overseeing preliminary investigations granted a prosecutorial request to revoke the suspect’s detention and replace it with a temporary security measure in a specialist residential healthcare facility known as a REMS.
Authorities worked to arrange his transfer, but because no beds were available at a REMS facility in the relevant area, officials placed him temporarily in another suitable healthcare facility pending a vacancy.
Carabinieri police arrested the 32-year-old suspect in the Piazza Libertà in the town of Salemi on the island of Sicily on Friday, November 13, 2026.
Investigators seized a blood-stained switchblade from the suspect’s home as the suspected weapon used in the attack.
Following a forensic psychiatric assessment that found him mentally incompetent due to a severe psychotic disorder, a judge approved his transfer to a specialist residential healthcare facility.
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