Girl, 2, murdered by adoptive father who bashed her head against wall
A father has been found guilty of murdering his two-year-old adopted daughter after he ‘bashed her head against a wall’.
Jan Gholami and his wife Roqia Ghulami had been on trial for the murder of Zahra Ghulami at their Gravesend home in May 2020.
During the nine-week trial, prosecutor Sally Howes KC said Zahra suffered a skull fracture caused by ‘significant impact with significant energy’ at the hands of Gholami.
The girl was taken to hospital on May 27 2020 and died two days later after, and the father-of-four was accused of taking out his ‘bad temper’ on the young girl.
At Maidstone Crown Court, jurors convicted Gholami of murder in a majority verdict of 10 to two after deliberating for nearly 20 hours.
Wife Ghulami, 32, was cleared of murder but found guilty of cruelty to a person under 16 in a unanimous verdict.
Former farmer Gholami, originally from Afghanistan, told jurors he went to Tesco that morning and when he got home his son said Zahra had fallen down the stairs and was vomiting.
The 33-year-old denied hurting his children, saying he loved them: ‘If I would do such things I wouldn’t come to this country. There was a lot of violence in Afghanistan already. The reason I came to this country was for the welfare of my children.’
Zahra’s cause of death was given as severe head injury and skull fracture by Professor Charles Mangham, an osteoarticular pathologist.
The couple adopted Zahra in 2017 after Gholami’s friend, Zahra’s father, felt unable to look after her after his wife died in childbirth, when Ghulami was in Afghanistan and the adoption was approved by village elders.
In January 2019, Gholami applied for asylum for Ghulami from the UK, and she arrived with the children to join him.
Zahra was described as a ‘bright, intelligent’ child who was ‘highly curious’ and wanted to find out about everything.
The court also heard evidence of alleged domestic abuse by Gholami against Ghulami, with a neighbour claiming she saw Gholami punch Ghulami in the face outside their home.
Gholami denied hurting his wife, but jurors also heard how Ghulami told a police officer and social worker that he beat her, sometimes by slapping her or banging her head against a wall, and she was scared he would kill her.
Gholami also denied allegations of older injuries before Zahra’s death, including that he banged her head against the wall and fractured her skull on an earlier occasion.
Prosecutor Ms Howes said: “Because this is what you do. You bang people’s heads against walls.
‘Because you’ve done this before and Zahra had survived, you just walked away and went to Tesco.’
Judge Mr Justice Wall will sentence Gholami on February 16, and Ghulami at a date to be decided.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.