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A BRITISH accountant has gone on trial accused of murdering a toddler on Skype from 1,760 km away.
Ammaz Qureshi, 35, is said to have told the baby’s mother, 28-year-old Yasmin Chaudhry, to submerge her 1-year-old daughter in a bucket of water after the child interrupted their online chat. The pair both went on trial in Oslo charged with premeditated murder and assault.
Married accountant Qureshi, of north London, was introduced to Chaudhry by her brother in London in February 2010.
After she returned to Oslo two months later, they continued their relationship by text and over the Internet.
During months of online chats, Qureshi encouraged Chaudhry to abuse her daughter by forcing her to eat chili powder and bind her arms and legs with rope as he watched on Skype, it is alleged.
When the infant began crying during one conversation in October 2010, Qureshi is said to have told Chaudhry to hold the baby’s head in a bucket of water as “discipline.”
After being held underwater twice, the child lost consciousness and the mother called emergency services, but the girl died in hospital the next day.
Oslo District Attorney Cecilie Schlosser Moller told Norway’s TV2 before the trial: “She was subjected to physical violence during disciplining. In the end, it went too far and she died.
“By submerging the girl in the bucket, they would have anticipated her death. She was a small, defenseless girl who was subjected to extensive abuse.”
Qureshi has been in custody in Oslo for more than a year, following his extradition to Norway. He and Chaudhry both deny murder, but the mother has pleaded guilty to abusing her child.
She blames Qureshi — who is not the child’s father — for the child’s death by telling her to submerge her daughter in water.
Qureshi’s lawyer Vibeke Hein Baera told the court: “My client is baffled that he is accused of a crime committed in a country which he — at that point in time — had never set foot in.”
The trial at the Oslo District Court continues.
(SD-Agencies)
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