Story By: Koen Berghuis, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: CEN

An asylum seeker has gone on trial for strangling to death a young mum who was working as a sex worker in a German red light district to support her child.

Natasha D., 35, was found strangled to death in September last year on a street in the red light district of Hamm in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The suspect, 24-year-old Syrian asylum seeker Mohamed A., has gone on trial for the murder at the district court in Dortmund.

Pictures Credit: CEN

Mohamed A. told the court that he is unable to remember much of the fateful night due to his intoxicated state.

He said: “I drank a lot the evening before, I cannot remember much of it. I never wanted to kill anyone, I woke up at home and a voice told me that I had a big problem concerning a dead woman.”

According to reports, Mohamed A. woke up from his hangover and went back to the red light district where he found Natasha’s lifeless body in some bushes.

Later that day, he allegedly told his boss that he had suffocated a woman.

The employer told the court: “He wanted to talk to me in private. He claimed that he killed a girl.”

The presiding judge told the defendant that he did not believe his account.

The judge said: “You are not remembering anything and suddenly you have a problem with a dead woman? That is all very remarkable. I don’t believe you.”

According to forensic investigations, the victim died as a result of central paralysis after the perpetrator used his forearm to choke her for several minutes.

The victim’s sister Iliana Z. said that Natasha came to Germany from Bulgaria to work as a prostitute in order to make enough money to raise her four-year-old daughter Viktoria.

Iliana said: “Viktoria is undergoing therapy in Bulgaria. She knows what happened to her mother. She is trying to understand, although she still occasionally waits for her mother to suddenly appear.”

The trial is ongoing.