'Allah Ordered Me' to Behead 4-Year-Old Girl, Muslim Nanny Says
A Muslim nanny from Uzbekistan who earlier this week beheaded a 4-year-old girl in Moscow has said that "Allah ordered" her to commit the murder.
BBC News reported that 38-year-old mother of three Gulchekhra Bobokulova admitted her guilt before reporters on the way to a Moscow court, though she is also being evaluated for mental problems.
Bobokulova is suspected of waiting until the parents of the little girl left their flat in the Russian capital before she killed and then beheaded the young child. Video footage later depicted the nanny walking around a metro station with the severed head in her hands, before she was arrested by police.
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Footage also showed the woman shouting phrases like "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) and "I am a terrorist." She later told reporters she was "ordered by Allah" to carry out the crime.
Other things she was apparently heard saying included "I hate democracy. I'm a terrorist. I'm your suicide bomber. … I'm going to die in a second" and "The end of the world is coming in a second. … I'm your death," teleSUR reported.
Police have said that the woman also threatened to blow herself up after they asked her for identity documents.
Russian investigators are searching to see if anyone else was involved in the crime, but so far they are not treating it as a terrorism case.
Prosecutors said they believe Bobokulova had been "incited" to commit the crime, but did not say by who.
The woman had been working for the parents of the little girl for 18 months, and though she had a valid residency permit for Russia, she had no work permit.
Russian journalist Polina Nikolskaya, who witnessed the scene, told Reuters: "I was on my way to the metro station from home. She was standing near the metro entrance and caught my attention because she was screaming Allahu Akbar. I saw that she had a bloodied head in her arms but I thought it was not real. People in the crowd said it was real."
Other reports in local media have said that the nanny was under the influence of unidentified drugs when she was walking the streets and yelling with the severed head.
Moscow residents have meanwhile been leaving toys and flowers at the Oktyabrskoye Polye metro station in honor of the girl, as well as outside the flat where she was murdered.
