An illegal Moroccan immigrant who allegedly threw his fiancee’s daughter, 3, from a balcony while on drugs has had his murder charge downgraded to manslaughter after the prosecutor believed his claim that it was a game-gone-wrong.
Mohssine Azhar, 32, has claimed he was throwing little Fatima Skika, aged three and a half, up in the air “for fun” on his fifth-floor balcony when “she slipped through my hands” and fell to the street below.
The incident took place in the centre of the northern Italian city of Turin at around 10pm on Thursday, 13th January.
Skika was very seriously injured in the fall, and she was taken to the Regina Margherita Children’s Hospital in Turin, where she underwent brain surgery. However, despite the doctors’ best efforts, she died the following day.
Azhar is currently in pre-trial custody. However, he has had his original murder charge downgraded to manslaughter after crown prosecutor Agostino Pasquariello accepted his version of events.
The suspect, according to local media, is an illegal immigrant from Morocco with an extensive criminal record, largely for drug dealing.
He claimed at his hearing on Saturday, 15th January: “I was throwing her in the air and catching her. It was something that really amused her and that we did often. We were greeting mum, who was on another balcony on the floor below. But she slipped through my hands.”
His version of events was backed up by his lawyer Alessandro Sena, who was quoted in La Reppublica as saying: “There was no desire to harm the child. He loved her.”
Forensics experts have yet to confirm the suspect’s version of events, and the autopsy report is also still pending.
However, what is already known so far is that the balcony was only 80 centimetres (31 inches) wide and that the suspect was under the influence of alcohol and hashish at the time.
Azhar had been watching a game with friends in his apartment on the fifth and top floor of the apartment block, where his fiancee also lives, but in another apartment.
He had gone down to his fiancee’s flat and then returned to his own flat, with his partner’s daughter returning with him, as she often did.
The girl’s mother Lucia Chinelli is reportedly standing by her man.
The investigation is ongoing.
