Story By: Lee Bullen, Sub-Editor: Marija Stojkoska,  Agency: Newsflash

A man is standing trial in Italy for burning his toddler son with cigarettes and then beating him to death in his bed as he slept because his mother had told him that the boy had the ‘evil eye’.

Alija Hrustic, 26, is accused of killing his two year old son Mehmet in front of his pregnant wife and two other children at their home in the San Siro area of Milan in the Italian region of Lombardy in May 2019.

According to a statement read out in court by prosecutor Giovanna Cavalleri, the defendant confessed: “After smoking hashish, I was angry with him because I was convinced – my mother told me – that my son, the youngest, had the evil eye.”

In some cultures, the evil eye is a superstitious curse believed to be cast by a malevolent glare.

The statement continued: “So I don’t know why, I was in a paranoid state about him.

“I woke up during the night while high, woke up the boy, and pummelled him with kicks and punches.”

He added: “I thought he had the ‘evil eye’.”

The father also reportedly stubbed out cigarettes on the boy earlier in the night.

Cavalleri said about the defendant’s wife, who was pregnant at the time: “Before the crime, she was totally dependent on him. She had no ID, no residency or citizenship, she was not even registered with a GP.

“When the children were ill, even for just a normal fever, she had to take them to A&E.”

The court heard how the woman accused her husband of beating the boy with a belt across his back a month before his death.

The frightened wife reportedly called the emergency services, but hung up after a few rings.

When the emergency services called back to check if everything was okay, she claimed that one of her young daughters had accidentally used the phone.

The woman now lives with her son, who she was pregnant with at the time of the murder, in a different area in Italy while her two daughters are being cared for in another community, although it was not said by whom. The couple’s eldest son was sent to live with his grandparents in Croatia.

Cavalleri said: “At the time of the crime, the woman was totally isolated and completely subject to her husband’s family who told her, even after his arrest, to answer all letters he sent to her from prison.”

Her mother-in-law allegedly told her: “If he kills himself in his cell, it will be your fault.”

The prosecutor added: “The woman has finally managed to get out of that degrading and culturally-backward social situation that caused her to be a victim herself.”

The prosecutor is asking for life sentence for the defendant with the first nine months to be spent in solitary confinement.

A decision is expected on 25th May.