Woman claims mental incompetence in “infant killing”

Fariha Abdul Rahman from B. Thulhaadhoo has plead innocent to the charges against her for allegedly killing an infant right after she gave birth to it.

During the hearing held on Tuesday at Criminal Court, Fariha’s defense attorney said that the defendant plead not guilty to the charges given that she had not injured the infant during the pregnancy, or after birth – and there was no evidence that the infant had been alive when she gave birth and did not have any sign of injury – proven from the autopsy report.

The attorney said that Fariha had suffered sexual assault and had been mentally affected from the abuse and the resultant pregnancy. But, he stressed that Fariha had not had any intention of harming the child.

The attorney said that Fariha’s mental state had been evaluated and its report had been submitted as evidence.

He said that prosecution was welcome to carry out an independent evaluation of Fariha’s mental state.

The state prosecutor said that he would make a comment regarding the issue after reading the report.

The judge provided three days for both the defense and the prosecution to submit their list of witnesses.

Prosecution alleges that Fariha had given birth in the bathroom of her floor, and had left the infant on the floor – returning a moment later to clean the floor with water and drop the infant into the drain.

The incident took place on July 27, 2015.

Fariha has been charged with carrying out an act of disdain for the value of a human life, negligence leading to death of a person, and violating her duty as a parent to look after her child.