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.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to