Germany: Muslim mother kills her four-year-old son to keep him from being raised as a Christian

In the Qur’an, a mysterious figure, known as Khidr in Islamic tradition, kills a boy in an apparently random and gratuitous attack. He then explains: “And as for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared that he would overburden them by transgression and disbelief. So we intended that their Lord should substitute for them one better than him in purity and nearer to mercy.” (18:80-81)

The mother in this case was likewise afraid that her son would grow up in “transgression and disbelief,” and she acted as Khidr did.

“4-year-old drowned in Rotenburg: accused mother collapses,” translated from “4-Jähriger in Rotenburg ertrunken: Angeklagte Mutter bricht zusammen,” Buten un Binnen, April 13, 2021 (thanks to Medforth):

How often does it happen that an entire courtroom suffers with the defendant? The 40-year-old woman with a silk headscarf wants to testify, but she is intimidated and upset, weeps silently and can barely utter a word. The mother is said to have killed her four-year-old son: she deliberately threw him from a bridge in Rotenburg into the Wümme, said public prosecutor Pia Geisler on Tuesday at the start of the trial in the Verden district court. The child drowned in the river. The charge is manslaughter (Az. Ks 101/21).

The defendant “killed a person without being a murderer,” said Geisler. Paragraph 212.1 of the Criminal Code provides for imprisonment between five years and life imprisonment. The boy came to the children’s clinic in Rotenburg on November 2, 2020 with severe burns. He had to be operated on three times. The mother, who is Turkish, said that she accidentally scalded him with hot water while washing, the prosecutor said.

Hospital employees wanted to notify the youth welfare office

The employees in the hospital found the injuries suspicious, they wanted to call in the youth welfare office. The mother then took her child out of the clinic. “The defendant feared that her custody would be withdrawn,” said Geisler. In the woman’s mind, this also meant that the boy would grow up not as a Muslim, but as a Christian. That’s why she threw her son over the railing of the bridge into the water to kill him.

She then wanted to commit suicide, but did not succeed. Hours later, the police in Rotenburg picked up the distraught woman. The body of the drowned child was found in a nightly search. The mother was first placed in a psychiatric hospital and later in custody.

Judge breaks off the trial

When the woman tried to testify through an interpreter, but could not, the presiding judge Volker Stronczyk broke off the questioning and adjourned the hearing. “Everyone in the room could see that the situation is very stressful for you,” he reassured the defendant as she apologized for her breakdown. “We negotiate the whole thing calmly and patiently.” The judge ordered defense attorney Daniela Post to summarize her client’s testimony in writing for the next meeting on April 30th.