The man accused of murdering and dismembering British teenager Cara Marie Burke will plead temporary insanity at his trial, his lawyer said.
Carlos Trajano, who is representing Burke’s confessed killer, Mohammed Carvalho dos Santos, 20, said his client was “totally dependent” on a range of drugs including crack, cocaine and a drug known in Brazil as merla — a potent mixture of coca paste and battery acid which is sold openly on the streets of Jardim Novo Mundo, the poor district where Burke spent much of her time in Goiania.
“He took everything you can possibly imagine — he even sniffed cooking gas,” said Trajano, whose client faces up to 36 years in jail if convicted. “The crime took place after he’d been awake for four days using cocaine. When the girl arrived he was using crack. She picked up the telephone and said she was going to call the police and he had an attack of rage.”
As the search for the head, legs and arms of the 17-year-old continued on Sunday, further details emerged about Dos Santos’ background.
Born in a poor suburb of Goiania in 1987 his father was a driver for the city’s military police. In 1989, aged 28, he was tortured and executed with a single shot to the head. His mangled body was recovered two days later abandoned outside the city and taken to the same mortuary where Burke’s torso is held.
In an interview with the Diario da Manha newspaper Dos Santos’ mother, Ivanyr, speaking from London, said her son had never recovered from his father’s murder.
“They shot him in the leg, the face, it smashed his face,” said Ivanyr, who works as a maid in London. “[Mohammed] loved his father.”
Ivanyr dos Santos said her son used to pelt police cars that came near their home with stones.
Trajano said his client had previously been charged with attempted homicide and car theft.
“My son is not this monster that society thinks he is. He always helped people. He has a good heart,” Ivanyr told the Diario da Manha.
Asked what she would say to Burke’s family, she replied: “I don’t have the words.”
ANTIGUA NIGHTMARE
In other crime news, a newlywed shot on the last day of his Caribbean honeymoon has died, a British hospital said on Sunday.
Morriston Hospital in Swansea, Wales, said brain stem tests showed that Benjamin Mullany — comatose since he was shot in the head in Antigua last week — was dead. He had been on life support systems.
His bride, Catherine Mullany, was killed in the same attack.
In Antigua, Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer vowed to bring to justice whoever attacked the couple and offered condolences to Benjamin Mullany’s relatives: “We express our deep sympathies to the family of Benjamin and pray that God will give them comfort in this time of sorrow.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS