A judge in Italy has sentenced a 23-year-old man to life in prison for the stabbing murder of his former girlfriend, a heinous act of femicide that has put violence against women in the spotlight in this country.

The sentence against Filippo Turetta was read in a Venice court a little over a year after the body of Giulia Cecchettin was found in a ditch.

A man who confessed to killing his former girlfriend last year, in a notorious femicide case that shocked Italy and triggered a national debate on violence against women, was on Tuesday found guilty and sentenced to life.

On Tuesday, more than a year after Ms. Cecchettin’s killing, her former boyfriend, Filippo Turetta, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, concluding a case that has outraged people across Italy, where chauvinistic attitudes remain deeply rooted at all levels of society.

Stories of femicide routinely top the news agenda in Italy, but Giulia Cecchettin’s story attracted an unusual amount of attention from the start. The week-long search for the young couple gripped people; the revelation that Ms Cecchettin had been killed just days before her graduation moved them. More than 10,000 attended her funeral.

Giulia Cecchettin's murder is one of a string of femicides that have made headlines in Italy in recent years, but it struck a nerve, pushing the issue to the forefront of public discourse.

A student who admitted murdering his ex-girlfriend in a brutal case that sparked outrage and soul searching in Italy will be sentenced Tuesday.