Hanaa Mohamed, the mother of a five-year-old boy, beheaded her son with a machete and ate his head.
The 29-year-old Hanaa, was on trial for her son, Youssef’s horrific murder and has been declared criminally insane by a court in Egypt.
According to the verdict revealed on September 30, the judges ruled that she was no fit to plead as she had killed the boy ‘in a state of madness’, therefore, should be detained at a secure psychiatric unit.
At the family home in Faqus, northern Egypt, Youssef’s uncle caught Hanaa after he had found some of the little boy’s body parts in a bucket. The uncle was so terrified.
Having gotten arrested, Hanaa confessed to the police that she had eaten part of her son’s head because she ‘wanted him to
stay with her forever’.
She also claimed to the police in Faqus that she ‘suffers from a mental illness’ and had no intention of killing her son.
Hanaa Mohamed had eaten Youssef’s body after she had butchered it in the bathroom and cooked his head and other pieces of his flesh in boiling water on the stove, the Criminal Court of Zagazig heard.
Prosecutors argued that Hassan had killed her son because she was scared that she might lose custody of him to her ex-husband.
A panel of court-appointed psychiatric experts found that Hassan was ‘delusional’ and had wild notions that relatives were using sorcery against her son.
She viewed the slaughter as a simple mistake as she did not appreciate the seriousness of her actions, therefore, the report declared that she is suffering from impaired insight and judgment.
According to the psychiatric report, she had gotten a machete and a club and had locked all the doors and windows of her house, meaning that she was responsible for her premeditated actions.
It all happened that Hanaa had struck her son’s head three times, killing him, and then chopped his head into pieces in an attempt to erase the evidence.
H.A., Hanaa’s ex-husband, in his report to the local media said;
‘When I arrived, the police prevented me from seeing my son because of the horrific scene.
‘We separated from each other four years ago because she had land from her father and asked me to leave the house and my family and go with her to live on the land.
‘But I refused, and the relationship ended entirely by her will, and I tried to reconcile with her after the divorce, but she refused and stuck to her opinion,’ he narrated.
My son was the one who kept me connected to her, and I used to see him regularly and bring him clothes and things he needed.
‘But recently she was trying to keep him away from me and plant hatred towards me in his heart, so he wouldn’t come to me.
‘I was trying to communicate with her family to see my son and make sure he was OK,’ he added.
Furthermore, Samir Mohamed Saleh, H.A.’s lawyer, reported that the suspect was stone-faced when she explained to her questioners that;
‘I wanted to free him and myself, I wanted to take revenge against his father and be free. His father keeps coming and trying to take him away all the time.’
Hanaa and Youssef had been living alone after she separated from her husband, who insists she knew exactly what she was doing.
She was ordered to be detained at the Abbasiya Mental and Neurological Health Hospital in Cairo.
