Newborn hurled to death was 'love child'

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Turin, June 23 (IANS/AKI) DNA tests showed that a newborn thrown to his death from a second floor apartment in northwest Italy last month was conceived when his mother had extramarital sex, Turin daily La Stampa reported.

The full-term baby, named Giovanni by doctors, was found by a street sweeper in Settimo Torinese lying in the road early on May 30 but died half an hour after being rushed to Turin's Regina Margherita hospital by ambulance.

Giovanni's mother, 34-year-old Valentina Ventura, is under arrest for murder while her husband, who claimed to have been unaware that she was pregnant, is a witness in the ongoing investigation of the infant's death.

"His version of events is truthful and credible," La Stampa quoted the prosecutor spearheading the probe, Giuseppe Ferrando, as saying.

No family member attended Giovanni's funeral.

Ventura, who has a young daughter, reportedly denied during her pregnancy that she was expecting a child and said she gave birth alone at the family's apartment.

"I threw my baby out of the window as soon as he was born in the bathroom. I don't remember anything else," she allegedly told police.

--IANS/AKI

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