A nanny accused of decapitating a young girl
in her care then walking through the street brandishing the head, on Wednesday
said “Allah ordered” the killing as she appeared at a Moscow court. Suspect
Gyulchekhra Bobokulova from Muslim-majority Uzbekistan — whom the press have
dubbed “the bloody nanny” — was detained on Monday as she was waving the
child’s severed head outside a Moscow metro station. She was sent for
psychiatric examinations.
“It was what Allah ordered,” the
38-year-old told journalists as she was brought into the district court to have
her arrest confirmed and extended.
Speaking in broken Russian from the suspect’s
cage, Bobokulova said: “Allah is sending a second prophet to give news of
peace” and also complained that she was “hungry”, had not been fed and would
“die in a week”. “Hi to everyone,” said the mother-of-three, waving at the
crowd of journalists in the courtroom.
Investigator Olga Lapteva, who was clearly
emotional, told the court that Bobokulova was suspected of committing an
“extremely serious crime” and that she should face “a mandatory prison sentence
of considerably more than three years.” The court confirmed the nanny’s arrest
and ordered her held in custody for two months as investigations continued.
Investigators said they were still trying to
establish if Bobokulova had any accomplices. Bobokulova has been undergoing
psychiatric examinations since her detention over the murder of the girl,
Nastya, whom the judge said was born in 2011. Investigators had initially estimated
she was three or four years old.
She is
suspected of butchering the girl, who had suffered from learning disabilities
and epilepsy, at the family’s apartment in northwestern Moscow, before torching
it and fleeing the scene.
