A father who killed his 20-month-old baby son has been jailed for life after a jury found him guilty of murder by a majority verdict.
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Yusif Ali Abdi
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Mr Yusif Ali Abdi (30), a refugee from Somalia, with an address at The Elms, College Road, Clane, Co Kildare, had pleaded not guilty to a charge of the murder of his son, Nathan Baraka Andrew Ali on 17th April 2001 in the apartment at College Road, Clane.
The jury verdict came after five hours deliberations over two days in the Central Criminal Court trial.
Mr Justice Carney immediately sentenced Yusif Ali Abdi to the mandatory term of life imprisonment. As the sentence was passed, Mr Ali Abdi turned to the jury and repeatedly called out: "This is racism, this is racism". He also remarked that he had been judged by "white people". His wife, Ms Amanda Bailey (29) from Dundrum, Dublin went to support him. Turning to the jury she said, "I hope you're happy with yourselves."
In a statement afterwards, she said: "I do not believe Yusif to be of sound mind when he took the life of our son. I will support him in his appeal as I have supported him throughout his trial."
Ms Bailey went on to say that her son was loved dearly and that his "short life will never be forgotten".
A post-mortem showed that baby Nathan Ali died from massive damage to the brain, with skull fractures resulting from multiple impacts with a hard surface.
On the night of the killing, Easter Monday 2001, Yusif Ali Abdi's wife and child were paying him a visit. Ali Abdi awoke at 4 a.m., went to his son's bed and removed him from it, took him to another room, locked the door, and swung him by the feet against a kitchen wall, causing fatal injuries to his head. There was no prior history of physical abuse of the child and Ali Abdi was said by witnesses to be "a gentle", "quietly spoken" man.
Amanda Bailey had taken Nathan with her and was staying with her parents because of Ali Abdi's behaviour in the months prior to the incident. She gave evidence of his increasingly "strange" behaviour: his belief that his phone was tapped, that video cameras were trained on their apartment, that gardaí were following him and that she was poisoning him. He also kept all internal doors in the apartment locked and the curtains closed 24 hours a day.
In December 2000, he was on anti-depressants, but he was also prescribed the anti-malaria drug, Lariam, which is known to cause serious psychiatric side-effects in one in 140 people.
Two consultant psychiatrists called by the defence told the two-week trial they believed Yusif Ali Abdi was schizophrenic at the time of the killing and that his reason was impaired by a disease of the mind, meaning he could not form an intention to kill or cause serious injury - the legal requirement for a finding of murder.
But a consultant psychiatrist at the Central Mental Hospital, Dr Damien Mohan, disputed their diagnosis and said that in his opinion, Mr Ali Abdi was legally sane. Ali Abdi has been in the Central Mental Hospital for the past two years and has been prescribed anti-psychotic and anti-schizophrenic drugs.
All of the psychiatrists giving evidence agreed that the anti-malaria drug, Lariam, could not be ruled out as a factor in the killing.
Mr Justice Carney refused leave to appeal, but Ali Abdi's lawyers will now directly apply to the Court of Criminal Appeal to seek leave to appeal there.