IMRAN ZILIC - Aged 3 years - Perth (Western Australia)

Sydney Morning Herald

March 26, 2010

by Steve Larkin

Father who killed son found not guilty

A father who slit the throat of his son and tossed the body down an outback mine shaft has been found not guilty of murder due to mental incompetence.

Perth man Aliya Zilic believed his three-year-old son, Imran, was the devil's helper when he murdered the boy in South Australia's far north in 2008.

SA Supreme Court Justice Margaret Nyland on Friday found Zilic not guilty of the murder due to mental incompetence.

She said Zilic was suffering mental impairment at the time and was "thereby not knowing his conduct was wrong".

Justice Nyland ordered Zilic be detained for life in a psychiatric institution.

Zilic's lawyer, Bronwen Waldron, had previously told the court there was a "religious overlay" to the killing.

Zilic had taken his son from Perth and went on a "bizarre odyssey" through Australia's outback, Ms Waldron said.

Zilic's psychosis "obliterated any sense of what he had done and what he was doing", she said.

After the killing, Zilic returned to a Coober Pedy dug out where he had been staying with his son and washed the murder weapon in a "respectful, almost religious cleansing", she said.

He then drove throughout the NT and into Western Australia, and when arrested by police, Zilic denied involvement in the murder because he believed them to be the devil.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/father-who-killed-son-found-not-guilty-20100326-r1ky.html

whatsonxiamen

26 Mar 2010

Aliya Zilic not guilty of murder of son Imran Zilic due to mental incompetency

THE father who killed his son and threw his body down a Coober Pedy mine shaft has been found not guilty of murder due to mental incompetence.

But Aliya Zilic will be held in custody indefinitely under a mental health supervision order.

Justice Margaret Nyland handed down the decision in the Supreme Court this morning.

Zilic had been charged with the murder of Imran Zilic, 3, at Coober Pedy between April 20-24, 2008.

During a trial by judge alone, prosecutor Jim Pearce told the court last year that Zilic was a drug addict and schizophrenic who believed his er wife,Mirsada Halilovic, was "working for the devil" and "possessed by demons".

The court heard Zilic told police he believed his son to be in the hands of God.

"(Zilic) said Allah's name and dropped him in a shaft," Mr Pearce said.

The boy's body was found in a disused drill hole 47km south of the Outback town.

The court heard police were able to locate Imran's body after Zilic drew a map and provided some directions.

Prosecutors alleged Zilic had travelled from Coober Pedy to Perth in April last year, arriving to pick up his son about 6am on April 20.

They alleged he then returned to Coober Pedy, stopping along the way including at Penong, near Ceduna, where a hotel proprietor described Imran as "hysterical".

Zilic is then alleged to have attended a doctor's appointment at Coober Pedy hospital on April 22nd, when he was prescribed an anti-psychotic medication.

"The killing has to have taken place sometime on either the 22nd or 23rd, bearing in mind (Zilic) left Coober Pedy on the 23rd," Mr Pearce said.

He said police found a washed steak knife in the kitchen drawer at Zilic's one-bedroom unit in Coober Pedy that had a DNA match to that of his son.

He said other forensic evidence, including blood in Zilic's car, also linked him to the killing.

Zilic was arrested in the West Australian town of Kununurra on May 1 last year, after travelling to Alice Springs and Katherine, both in the Northern Territory.

Mr Pearce told the court three psychiatrists had provided reports indicating Zilic was motivated by paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the murder.

http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news11182.html