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| Down Under |
| Baby butcher ordered to die in jail |
| 2005-03-08 |
| IT wasn't the birthday present Raymond Akhtar Ali was looking for, as the High Court yesterday ensured the baby killer would die in jail. A butcher who killed and dismembered his newborn baby girl just minutes after her birth, Ali lost his bid for a retrial yesterday. The Full Bench of the High Court in Canberra took less than a minute to find Ali — who will spend his 52nd birthday today in a jail cell — was a cold-blooded killer who had no right to freedom. Ali, a butcher who specialised in preparing halal meats for other Muslims, bashed Chahleen Amy Blackwell to death minutes after her birth beside a tank stand at a property at Logan Village, south of Brisbane, in September 1998. The court was told he dismembered the infant, removing the reproductive organs, in the same fashion that he killed goats for halal customers. The girl's mother, Amanda Leanne Blackwell, had been having a secret affair with Ali despite her engagement to the butcher's nephew. The Queensland Supreme Court was told Ali forced Blackwell into prostitution and kept her as a virtual sex slave. Blackwell testified Ali was the baby's father and that he was present at the birth. But before she could hold the baby Ali took her away and later returned, telling her he had disposed of the body. Ali claimed he was not Chahleen's father, but DNA tests proved there was a 99.9 per cent chance the child was his. While Ali received a life sentence, Blackwell convinced a jury she did not take part in the murder and escaped with lesser charges of manslaughter and concealing the birth of a child. Ali twice appealed to the Queensland Court of Appeal, first claiming errors in Supreme Court Justice Margaret Wilson's verdict. The first appeal was dismissed, but a second appeal on the grounds that his legal team was incompetent granted Ali special leave to appeal to the High Court. The High Court found the evidence against Ali was solid, there were no errors that interfered with his chance of an acquittal and there was nothing to be gained by a retrial. At his sentencing before the Supreme Court in Brisbane in November 2000, Ali shouted: "I will prove my innocence to a higher court. I have been judged on my colour and my religion." The highest court in the land spoke yesterday, ensuring Ali would spend his birthday and every day for the rest of his life in a cell. |
| Posted by:tipper |