Accused was not 'normal man', psychiatrist says

A father accused of the murder of his 20-month-old son was suffering from an abnormality of the mind at the time he took his son by the feet and swung his head against a kitchen wall, a consultant psychiatrist has told the Central Criminal Court.

Yusif Ali Abdi, aged 30, a refugee from Somalia, with an address at The Elms, College Road, Clane, Co Kildare, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of the murder of his son, Nathan Baraka Andrew Ali on April 17 2001 in the apartment at College Road, Clane.

Today, Dr Andrew Washington Burke, a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in London, told the trial that Mr Abdi was "not a normal man" at the time of the killing.

His diagnosis from examining the accused, talking to psychiatrists who had treated him, examining medical notes and meeting his wife and members of her family, was that the accused was a chronic schizophrenic, he said.

Dr Burke said the 30-year-old father did not act on his will and did not make a choice when he inflicted fatal injuries to his infant son's head when he rose and took from his bed in the early hours of the morning following Easter Monday 2001.

"I do not believe that a normal man could have made this choice", Dr Burke said.

"Could have grabbed his much loved son by the feet and struck him against the wall three times: that was not a normal man; the only reason he did that, the only reason that could have happened, is that he was, as he says, acting on the command of this voice in his head."

Counsel for the DPP, Mr Michael Durack SC said Dr Burke was the only psychiatrist who examined Mr Abdi who had made that diagnosis.

He said the jury would hear evidence that other psychiatrists disputed his findings, and would hear that attempts had twice been made to transfer the accused from the Central Mental Hospital - where he has been for almost two years - back to prison.

The trial continues.