An enraged husband bludgeoned his wife to death after she asked him to move out because he was struck down with coronavirus, a court heard today.
Hussein Egal, 66, is accused of murdering 57-year-old Maryan Ismail at their flat in Edmonton, north London, during the first lockdown on April 6.
The former bus driver attacked his wife with a knife, hammer, meat cleaver, pots, pans, a table leg and a ladder, the Old Bailey heard.
Jurors heard the killer had told police a furious row erupted when Ms Ismail asked him to leave the flat during the pandemic, Dailymail reports.
And that Egal, who admits manslaughter but denies murder, believes it was ‘coronavirus that had made him crazy and kill his wife’.
The court heard that prior to the argument Egal had been displaying symptoms of Covid-19, namely coughing, vomiting, hallucinating and a high temperature.
Allison Hunter, QC, prosecuting, today read Egal’s police statement in which he claimed his wife had ordered him out to ‘die on the street’.
Egal claimed the incident happened at around 8am on Sunday, 5 April last year, a couple of weeks into the first national lockdown.
Ms Hunter read his statement: ‘On Sunday 5th April 2020 Maryan told me to leave the address because she did not want to be contaminated by me. She then stood over me and physically tried to get me out of the property.
‘I do not recall the specifics given my delusional state, but I do recall a very strong sense of being attacked by someone, quite possibly with an instrument and I felt that I had to do what I needed to do to defend myself.’
Ms Hunter told jurors: ‘Hussein Yusuf Egal was taken to Wood Green Police Station. Upon his arrival Egal told the officer who opened the van door that he had coronavirus and that the officer should stay away from him.
‘He said it was the coronavirus that had made him crazy and kill his wife. He said that when he told his wife she said he could get out and die on the street and that he had said to her ‘I will kill you before that’ and so he did.
‘He stated that it definitely happened that Maryan had stood over him and physically tried to get him out of the property. He said he did not know what it was about, but that he felt frightened and very scared of Maryan and others he just could not remember any specifics.
‘He answered no comment when asked about why he had stabbed her ankles and why he had to beaten her so hard and brutally that one of her ears had come off.’
London’s Old Bailey was today told in horrific detail the injuries sustained by Ms Ismail, who was found semi-naked in her lounge.
Ms Hunter said: ‘Her death occurred sometime between 4-6 April 2020 and was the result of what scene and post-mortem photographs and examination reveal was a brutal, frenzied, sustained attack involving the use of a hammer, a knife, pots, pans, a table leg and a ladder plunged repeatedly into her back, chest, legs, arms and head.
‘She was found on the floor in the lounge, lying on her left side, feet towards the door, head towards the farthest wall in a semi-foetal position.’
The prosecutor said she was found wearing a dress an under-skirt that had ridden up, above her waist, and had no underwear on.
She added: ‘When police found her she had been partially covered by a sheet. The windows in the room were open, and she was stone cold to their touch.
‘Not all of the injuries Maryan Ismail had sustained were instantly visible to those who found her due to the amount of dried blood, discoloured and torn flesh and staining.
‘It was clear that she had been dead for some time and that she had sustained multiple slash and stab wounds to her face and head and indeed to the entire length of her body.
‘Her hair and skin from her head were missing so parts of her scalp were exposed, and her right ear was unrecognisable as such.
‘Her face was bloated and darkened through the number of wounds and appeared as though it was beginning to decompose.
‘Her hair was soaked with blood; there were broken teeth on the floor around and underneath the left side of her face.
‘There were deep ragged cuts and circular marks to her shins, ankles and calves, there was also a deep angular cut to the sole of her left foot.’
