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Mother jailed for beating son to death for struggling to memorize Quran

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A mother who beat her son to death for failing to memorize the Quran has been ordered to serve a minimum of 17 years behind bars, according to news reports.

Sara Ege was sentenced in a Wales court Monday after a trial revealed the 33-year-old mother had treated her son Yaseen “like a dog” and beat him until he died when he had a hard time learning the Quran by heart, according to the UK Guardian.

Ege subsequently set fire to her home to cover up the murder of the seven-year-old boy, in July 2010.

Justice Wyn Williams ordered her to serve no less than 17 years in prison and explained that her actions — beating her son over a three month period — subjected Yaseen to “prolonged cruelty” and caused him “a good deal of pain.”

“I am satisfied that it was his failure to learn the Quran that day that resulted in the beating that caused his death,” Williams said, according to the BBC.

“He was memorizing passages but on that day Yaseen must have failed in some way and it was that which was a trigger for the beating,” he added. “You killed your own son. At the time of the killing he was particularly vulnerable because of his age and because of his relative physical frailty.”

Ege had pled “not guilty” and put the blame for her son’s death on her husband, taxi driver Yousef Ege who was found not guilty of allowing the death that took place at their home in Pontcanna, Cardiff, South Wales, Sky News reported.

She initially confessed to the killing, saying, according to the BBC, “I was getting all this bad stuff in my head, like I couldn’t concentrate, I was getting angry too much, I would shout at Yaseen all the time.”

Ege later retracted her confession, offering the “not guilty” plea.

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Tags : islam
Caroline May