A Muslim woman disemboweled her daughter as a sacrifice to God after she became convinced the four-year-old was possessed by spirits

Shayma Ali, 36, stabbed the girl up to 40 times and took out her liver while Koranic verses played in the background. When police arrived at their east London home, Ali was heard chanting: "I seek refuge in God from the curse of Satan". Ali was found covered in blood rocking back and forward in the lounge of her home, with the child's liver on the carpet. She had become obsessed that the child was possessed by a Jinn, a spirit referred to in the Koran which can occupy humans and animals. Ali had become an increasingly devout follower of Islam after a trip to Egypt in 2009. Ali told a psychiatrist that she had been praying when she began to think about sacrificing a child as proof of her love of God and became convinced God wanted her to sacrifice her own child. The four-year-old had suffered 28 exit wounds to her back, but many of the wounds overlapped each other, leading the pathologist to believe that there had been 30 to 40 stab wounds. She had also suffered blunt impact injuries to her head and compression to her neck. Ali admitted manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. Wearing a burka she sobbed in the dock, flanked by three nurses, as she entered her plea.