Mohammed Khazma, 25, found guilty of murder of his girlfriend’s two-year-old daughter
A Sydney man has been found guilty of the brutal murder of his new girlfriend’s toddler after a jury rejected his claim that she was the culprit. Detectives will allege he burned the toddler with a cigarette lighter and slammed her head into a wall.
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A Sydney man has been found guilty of the brutal murder of his new girlfriend’s toddler after a jury rejected his claim that she was the culprit.
Mohammed Khazma, 25, had denied murdering the two-year-old girl in December 2016, along with two counts of assault causing actual bodily harm.
Detectives alleged he burned the toddler with a cigarette lighter and slammed her head into a wall.
A NSW Supreme Court jury on Monday found Khazma guilty of the three offences which occurred in a Sydney granny flat the couple and the girl had moved into weeks earlier.
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The girl’s mother was originally charged with her murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the basis she failed to remove the girl from Khazma’s alleged abuse, failed to protect her and failed to get medical help. She has already served her jail time.
She gave evidence that the majority of her disciplining involved sending her two children “in the corner for five minutes”.
The mother said her back was turned when Khazma slapped the two-year-old to the floor and she became unconscious.
The toddler turned “a brownish purple colour” and vomited black liquid, she said.
Khazma had told the jury he “never laid a finger” on the girl, insisting her mother was the one who pinched, punched, hit and whipped her. He said he had wanted to report the girl’s abuse to police but “didn’t want to get (the mother) in trouble”.
“But at the same time, I didn’t want her doing what she was doing to the kid,” he told the court in February.
He said he’d also seen the mother bite her daughter after a bottle was spilt in the car, hold her by the ankle so her head hit the floor, and whip her legs and feet with a phone charger cord.
A forensic pathologist gave evidence the toddler suffered dozens of wounds, including about 28 human bite marks on her arms, legs and buttocks and “massive bleeding” in her skull consistent with a traumatic injury.
Khazma is due to face a sentence hearing before Justice Elizabeth Fullerton on March 28.
Originally published as Mohammed Khazma, 25, found guilty of murder of his girlfriend’s two-year-old daughter
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