Italy: Gay medical student kills himself by jumping off a balcony
A 21-year-old man has taken his own life in Rome with investigators saying he talked of suffering homophobia in a letter written before his death.
Police have identified the man as Simone D (his surname is unknown), a medical student at the University La Sapienza.
It’s claimed he suffered homophobic bullying at the university.
The young man climbed onto the roof of a former pasta factory in Rome and threw himself off the eleventh floor during the early hours of Sunday morning.
“I’m gay,” he said, in a note discovered after his death.
”Italy is a free country but homophobia exists and whoever has this attitude must deal with his own conscience,” the letter added.
The man’s grieving parents say they were not aware he was gay or had been suffering from problems.
It is the third case in Rome in less than a year of a young gay person taking their own life.
A 14-year-old boy threw himself off a balcony in August.
Another teenager died in November 2012, by hanging himself.
