A mother who beheaded her five-year-old son with a machete and ate his head has been declared criminally insane by a court in Egypt.
29-year-old Hanaa Mohamed Hassan stood trial for the gruesome murder of her son Youssef, but judges at the Zagazig Criminal Court ruled she was not fit to plead.
Instead, in a judgment revealed on September 30, they said she had killed the boy “in a state of madness” and that she should be held in a secure psychiatric unit.
Hassan, the court heard, had been captured when Youssef’s shocked uncle found some of his body parts in a bucket at the family home in Faqous, northern Egypt.
After her arrest, police said she confessed to eating part of her son’s head because she “wanted him to stay with her forever.”
29-year-old Hanaa Mohamed Hassan (pictured left) stood trial for the gruesome murder of her son Youssef, but judges at the Zagazig Criminal Court ruled she was unfit to plead. Instead, in a judgment revealed on September 30, they said she had killed the boy “in a state of madness” and that she should be held in a secure psychiatric unit. Right in the photo: Youssef
She had butchered his body in the bathroom before stewing his head and other pieces of his flesh in boiling water on the stove and then eating them.
Before the ruling, prosecutors had argued that Hasan killed her son because she feared losing custody of the boy to her ex-husband.
An initial psychiatric report had also found that she was responsible for her actions, which were premeditated, as she had obtained a bat and a machete and locked all the doors and windows in her house.
She then struck her son’s head three times, killing him, and then dismembered Youssef’s body in an attempt to destroy the evidence.
But the court ordered a more detailed assessment of her mental state, and a panel of court-appointed psychiatric experts found that Hasan was “delusional” and had wild ideas that family members were using sorcery against her son.
According to the report, Hassan suffered from impaired insight and judgment and did not realize the seriousness of her actions.
She saw the sickening slaughter as a simple mistake.
Hassan was ordered to be held at Cairo’s Abbasia Mental and Neurological Health Hospital.
The ex-husband, identified only by his initials HA, told local media: ‘When I arrived, the police prevented me from seeing my son because of the horrific scene’
Before the verdict, prosecutors had argued that Hasan (pictured in police custody) killed her son because she feared losing custody of the boy to her ex-husband.
After her arrest, Hassan claimed to police in Faqous that she “suffers from a mental illness” and did not intend to kill her son.
She and Youssef lived alone after she separated from her husband, who insists she knew exactly what she was doing.
The ex-husband, identified only by his initials HA, told local media: ‘When I arrived, the police prevented me from seeing my son because of the horrific scene.
“We separated four years ago because she had land from her father and asked me to leave the house and my family and come with her to live in the land.
“But I refused, and the relationship ended completely by her will, and I tried to reconcile with her after the divorce, but she refused and stood by her opinion.”
He added: “My son was the one who kept me connected to her, and I saw him regularly and brought him clothes and things he needed.
“But lately she tried to keep him away from me and plant hatred towards me in his heart so that he wouldn’t come to me.
“I was trying to communicate with her family to see my son and make sure he was okay.”
According to his lawyer, Samir Mohamed Saleh, the suspect was stone-faced as she told her interrogators: “I wanted to free him and myself.
‘I wanted to take revenge on his father and be free. His father keeps coming and tries to take him away all the time.”