UK national sentenced to 20 years after beating his 1yo daughter to death in Kazakhstan

AKIPRESS.COM - A British airline pilot was jailed for 20 years in prison after being found guilty of murdering his daughter while intoxicated by drink and drugs at a 5-star hotel in Kazakhstan. Airbus captain Mohamed Barakat, 42, 'crushed the brains' and fractured the skull of one-year-old Sophia by banging her head against a wall, a court found, UK media report.
A Kazakh judge rejected the London-born pilot's claim that the child was fatally injured in an 'accident' resulting from an epileptic fit, Daily Mail reports.
His wife Madina, 23, who had changed her initial testimony blaming Barakat for the baby's death and and called on the judge to find him not guilty, was in tears as she listened to the verdict.
Barakat - a pilot employed by a subsidiary of Hong Kong Airlines - will serve his entire jail sentence in Kazakhstan prison, said the court authorities. After his release he will be banned from entering the country for five years.
His guilt was proved 'by the testimony of a witness - a maid who heard the sounds of banging on the wall, after which the crying of the child fell silent,' said a court statement issued by press secretary Abay Zharylkasyn.
The wounds were caused by 'repeated impact with hard objects and surfaces, and could not be obtained from a fall', said judge Bakhytkhan Bakirbayev.