Italian police announced on Wednesday that they had arrested a survivor of a deadly migrant shipwreck, who is accused of strangling to death an Iraqi teenager on board.
Dozens of people lost their lives when the ship, which set sail from Turkey, sank in mid-June about 220 km from Calabria, in the south of Italy. Twelve people were rescued on board the ship, a yatch, Italian police said. They included the suspect.
Police said in a statement that the yacht was already adrift when the man "unleashed his violence on a 16-year-old Iraqi girl, daughter of another survivor, resulting in her death by suffocation."
The 27-year-old suspect, also an Iraqi, raped his victim then killed her, according to Italian news agency AGI. However, the police did not confirm this information to French news agency AFP.
One passenger died during the rescue operation. Thirty-five other bodies were subsequently found at sea during the search, local authorities announced on Tuesday, bringing the death toll to at least 36, including nine women and 15 minors.
The boat was carrying around 70 people, according to the police.
The suspect arrested has been taken into custody at the prison in Catanzaro, the capital of Calabria, police said.
