A prosecutor has requested a 19-year sentence in a general-regime penal colony for Natalia Guseva, 42, on trial at the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in Russia over the killing of her three-year-old son, according to KP-Ekaterinburg.
Guseva broke down in tears after the request was read out. She said her son had died in her arms over eight minutes, and asked why she should have to serve 19 years, adding that she had not even been able to bury the child.
Guseva denies the charge. She has said her son was left with her partner, a citizen of Tajikistan, while she went to a shop, and that the man inflicted fatal injuries on the boy in her absence. Her lawyer, Alexander Kozlov, said phone data supporting her account showed she was at the shop, not at home, at the time of the crime.
Prosecution's account of the boy's death
According to investigators, the boy had recently been discharged from hospital after suffering a broken hip. They allege his mother beat him with her fists and then threw him to the floor, causing injuries that ruptured his liver and drove a rib into his lung. Investigators say the child could not defend himself because he was in a cast at the time.
Guseva had the boy with a partner she was not married to, a man from Tajikistan who later returned to his home country, where he was found to have a second family. Guseva subsequently moved in with a countryman of his. Her father told the court she had been a good mother who almost never punished the boy.
Case sent back for a second trial
The case has already gone through one full trial. A jury initially found Guseva not guilty and she was acquitted, but that verdict was overturned and the case was sent back to court for a retrial. In the second trial, the jury concluded her guilt was proven.
A sentence in the case is due to be announced on September 14.
