A Brazilian woman who murdered her Italian boyfriend in a magic ritual has been jailed for 20 years.

Clea Fernanda Maximo da Silva has been jailed for 20 years by Judge Filipe Ferreira Munguba for aggravated homicide and concealing a corpse in a trial that lasted just 12 hours in Maceio, the capital city of the state of Alagoas, on the north-eastern coast of Brazil.

She had been in pre-trial detention since November 2018 when she confessed to murdering her Italian boyfriend Carlo Cicchelli, 48, two months previously, in September 2018. The victim’s body was retrieved in a state of advanced decomposition.

The defendant told the police that she had used various substances so as to hide the smell the corpse from her neighbours.

She reportedly told police that she had murdered the Italian man in a “magic ritual” in which she claimed to have been forced to participate.

Prosecutor Denis Guimaraes said: “We expected a conviction from the beginning, despite the fact that the Council was female, we believed until the end that they would understand that the Public Ministry was not there accusing a woman, but a murderer who coldly planned a crime, attracted the victim, then hid the corpse and who managed to have, for everyone, a normal life living for 30 days with a body in an advanced state of decomposition at home.

“More than that, she tried to extort Mr Cicchelli’s relatives, clear proof that she was ambitious and intended to profit from the relationship. We fulfilled our duty to promote justice and it was done.”