A Ghanaian worker on the goat farm owned by Ethiopian immigrant Agitu Ideo Gudeta in the northern Italian region of Trentino has been arrested after confessing to raping and killing his 42-year-old employer, according to reports from Italy.
Gudeta was reportedly killed by hammer blows to her head. The name of the employee from Ghana has also not been publicized.
She had made her home in that part of the country on an abandoned piece of land where she reared goats on the La Capra Felice (The Happy Goat) farm. From the produce of the animals, Gudeta made cheese and beauty products.
Gudeta fled her native Ethiopia in 2010 after her protests against land grab incited the wrath of authorities. The protesters had accused the local government in Addis Ababa of divesting large swathes of land to foreign investors and to the detriment of locals.
By 2018, she had become a well-known commercial farmer in Trentino. She told Reuters in 2018 that she had started with goats shortly after arriving in the country and then had 180 goats. The products she made were popular with the locals and her business was successful, even allowing her to employ farmhands.
She often became a reference point for international news coverage in light of anti-immigrant clamoring by far-right parties and activists. Gudeta’s success was supposed to challenge public opinion of immigrants from Africa in the midst of growing hostilities against that group.
Trentino police say investigations into her death are ongoing.
