Attempted stabbing in Milan, culprit released

The crime scene

MILAN - Saidou Mamoud Diallo, 31, had tried to stab a train conductor at Lodi metro station on Wednesday. The Guinean migrant has since been released from arrest and is in the hands of the Milanese Immigration Office, who may decide to deport him home. A preliminary investigations judge made the decision to release him, saying "these are not crimes for which jail is envisaged.”

 Diallo has resisted arrest and been violent before, with his records showing that he had been previously reported for trying to get on a tourist coach armed with a knife. Whilst in Sondrio, an order of expulsion from Italy was issued to him on July 4, leading anti-immigrant Northern League MP Paolo Grimoldi to call for "mass expulsions" of migrants. Giuseppe Sala, the Mayor of Milan, said that  "controls are the only answer to these problems.”

 The 20410 Piacenza-Milan train conductor, Davide Feltri, had been wearing a bullet-proof vest, and so his wounds were not serious. The 45-year-old was working on a Trenord train at around 7:15 am, and had seen a young man trying to hide, because he didn’t have a ticket. “What are you doing here?” asked Feltri. They quarrelled about his lack of ticket but before Feltri had time to get out the fine, Diallo pulled out a knife, scaring the other passengers on the train. The conductor was rushed to the nearest emergency services, at the Codogno Hospital (Lodi) with a knife stuck in the right hand between the thumb and the index.

 The aggressor was able to flee the train and run through the countryside, while commuters phoned the police. Diallo was spotted and arrested on Wednesday evening at around 20 o'clock at Lodi station.

 This incident has prompted Trenord staff to call a strike out of protest. The episode brings back memories of June 2015, when a train conductor was attacked with a machete by a gang of young South Americans at Villapizzone, Milan, and nearly lost an arm. 

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