By Belinda Feek, Open Justice multimedia journalist<\/p>\n
Warning: This story contains details that some may find disturbing.<\/p>\n
Mukzameel Mukhzar Ali never wanted a child.<\/p>\n
After finding out that his partner had not terminated her pregnancy, he pushed her on their bed and jumped on her abdomen with his knees.<\/p>\n
Nine and a-half months after the child was born, Ali killed his son, using such force that he lacerated the baby\u2019s liver and his large bowel in two locations.<\/p>\n
Today, the 24-year-old appeared in the High Court at Hamilton, where he admitted killing his son in Te K\u016biti on June 8, 2024.<\/p>\n
He was set to go on trial defending charges of Mustafa\u2018s murder and two assault charges against his partner.<\/p>\n
However, he today pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter, assault with intent to injure between February 1, 2023, and May 31, 2023, and assaulting a person in a family relationship between June 2023 and June 2024.<\/p>\n
Justice Layne Harvey convicted Ali, who didn\u2019t pursue name suppression today, and remanded him in custody for sentencing in May.<\/p>\n
He declined NZME\u2019s application to take his photo today and instead granted it for sentencing.<\/p>\n
\u2018Terminate the baby\u2019<\/p>\n
Court documents reveal Ali didn\u2019t want his son to be born.<\/p>\n
After learning of his new partner\u2019s pregnancy in January 2023, he \u201cimmediately expressed concern\u201d and encouraged her to terminate it.<\/p>\n
However, the partner wanted the baby, and, initially, misled Ali, believing that she had miscarried.<\/p>\n
Ali later became aware that she was still pregnant some months later, after finding a photo of her pregnancy scan, which she had hidden from him.<\/p>\n
The pair argued, and Ali slapped her about the face \u201crepeatedly\u201d before pushing her down on the bed, placing his hands on her upper chest and around her neck.<\/p>\n
He then jumped on top of her with his knees on her abdomen.<\/p>\n
The victim didn\u2019t require hospitalisation, and her unborn baby was not harmed.<\/p>\n
The couple married in mid-July 2023, after meeting in September 2022, shortly before their son\u2019s birth.<\/p>\n
Their relationship remained \u201cvolatile\u201d and, on several occasions, Ali pushed or punched her.<\/p>\n
\u2018Floppy and cold to the touch\u2019<\/p>\n
On June 8, 2024, his partner woke to their son crying at 6am. She settled him in bed between her and Ali and went back to sleep.<\/p>\n
She got up at 8am, leaving the child sleeping with Ali at 10.50am.<\/p>\n
She asked Ali to give their son a bath and feed him in advance of family celebrations later that afternoon.<\/p>\n
Mustafa had been unwell during the days prior, with a high temperature.<\/p>\n
Some time after his partner left, Ali fed Mustafa a bottle and some Weet-Bix. The baby vomited and was unsettled.<\/p>\n
Ali tried to feed him again later in the morning, unsuccessfully.<\/p>\n
Frustrated, Ali attempted to force-feed Mustafa his bottle, causing prominent bruises to his chin.<\/p>\n
Unable to feed or settle him, Ali became \u201cstressed and angry\u201d.<\/p>\n
During this time, Ali caused a fatal injury through a violent blow to his abdomen.<\/p>\n
At 2.16pm, his partner returned to him and was met at the front door of the house by Ali holding Mustafa in his arms.<\/p>\n
The toddler was \u201cfloppy and cold to the touch\u201d.<\/p>\n
His partner grabbed the baby and ran outside for help before the couple drove directly to Te K\u016biti Hospital.<\/p>\n
Mustafa was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. He died as a result of a crushing injury to his abdomen, lacerating his liver and the wall of his large bowel in two locations.<\/p>\n
There was also bruising to his diaphragm, small bowel mesentery, and the back of his abdominal wall.<\/p>\n
The injury to Mustafa\u2019s liver was so severe that the bleeding into his abdomen would have started immediately after the injury was inflicted and continued uninterrupted until he died.<\/p>\n
Court documents state that, given the extent of his injury, it was unlikely that Mustafa would have survived longer than 30 to 60 minutes, possibly sooner.<\/p>\n
When initially spoken to by police, Ali said his son began to choke while feeding him, and the injury was likely caused by his subsequent attempt to perform CPR.<\/p>\n
A post-mortem found that Mustafa had abscesses around either side of his larynx, and it was likely that eating Weet-Bix would have caused him \u201csignificant discomfort\u201d.<\/p>\n
He also had bruising behind each of his ears and a large bruise on top of his head.<\/p>\n
The force required to cause Mustafa\u2019s internal injury was not consistent with CPR procedures.<\/p>\n
\u2018He was a happy and adorable boy\u2019<\/p>\n
Mourners farewelled the baby at a funeral at a Christian church on June 13, where hymns were sung, and garlands of white and blue balloons hung around the entrance.<\/p>\n
Mustafa\u2019s picture also shone out from a banner on display.<\/p>\n
About 100 people attended the service, many wearing T-shirts printed with Mustafa\u2019s face.<\/p>\n
His funeral followed a private service for the family.<\/p>\n
Mustafa\u2019s mum later broke her silence, saying her son was a \u201chappy and adorable boy\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Belinda Feek, Open Justice multimedia journalist Warning: This story contains details that some may find disturbing. Mukzameel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-298079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}