Accused says he was 'like a zombie or possessed' as he struck child's head on wall
A man has told a murder trial jury that he swung his infant son's head against a kitchen wall two or three times "like someone possessed" because a voice inside his head told him to do it.
Mr Yusif Ali Abdi said he could not believe the person he was at the time he killed his son. He was "ill", "living in another world" and "like a zombie", he said.
The jury heard that Mr Ali Abdi (30) was transferred to the Central Mental Hospital six months after he was detained for the murder and that he has been on anti-psychotic drugs since.
A refugee from Somalia, Mr Ali Abdi has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his 20-month-old son, Nathan Baraka Andrew Ali, on April 17th, 2001, in an apartment at The Elms, College Road, Clane, Co Kildare.
A post-mortem showed that the baby died from massive damage to the brain, with skull fractures resulting from multiple impacts with a hard surface.
Mr Ali Abdi gave evidence to the jury in the presence of his wife, Ms Amanda Bailey, and her parents and family in the Central Criminal Court.
Mr Justice Carney adjourned the trial early as he said the Baileys were "manifestly upset" at the evidence.
Mr Ali Abdi agreed with his counsel that he had had "bad experiences" in Somalia. He said this caused him sometimes to have images in his head.
He told Mr Tom O'Connell SC that he fled Kismayo on the eastern coast of Somalia after civil war erupted there in 1990. His father and stepmother had been shot dead and his family home burned. His two sisters and brother had also fled and he did not know where they were. He stayed for four to five years in the Utange refugee camp near Mombasa, Kenya.
In the camp, he was targeted "several times" and beaten up by members of other tribes. He was stabbed twice.
The UN closed the camp in 1995. Mr Ali Abdi said a friend of his father then put him in touch with an agent who, for $500, got him on a cargo ship which ended up in Waterford.
He was initially refused asylum but won his case on appeal. He met Ms Bailey in May 1998 and married her a year later. Their son was born in August 1999.
The night in question, his wife went to bed at about 10 or 11 p.m. At that stage, he was sleeping every night in the living room, he said, because he was "scared" someone would come into the bedroom. He also kept the living-room door locked.
At 4 a.m., he awoke for his prayers and as he was going to prepare for them, he saw the bedroom door open. "All of a sudden, I had a feeling," he said. "Someone came up inside my head and said, 'take him, take him'."
He went inside and took his son and brought him into the living-room, locking the door.
"At the time I was just, I don't know, like a zombie or possessed or something like that," he told Mr O'Connell. "I felt like my brain was taken out and nearly somebody else's brain was put inside mine, because that's not me at all." He said the voice told him, "hit him, hit him".
"And just like the same way, I was like someone who was possessed. I went and hit him on the wall. I hit him two or three times and I was still in that state."
Nathan was not moving and he put him on the floor, Mr Ali Abdi said. He then decided to pray.
"I guess I realised what had happened and the only thing I could think of was to do a prayer, maybe he would wake up or something," he said.