{"id":27209,"date":"2024-02-17T05:15:27","date_gmt":"2024-02-17T10:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=27209"},"modified":"2024-02-17T05:15:27","modified_gmt":"2024-02-17T10:15:27","slug":"father-jailed-for-life-for-two-year-old-adopted-daughter-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2024\/02\/17\/father-jailed-for-life-for-two-year-old-adopted-daughter-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Father jailed for life for two-year-old adopted daughter murder"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The adoptive father of a two-year-old girl has been jailed for life for her murder.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Zahra Ghulami sustained head injuries\u00a0at their home in Gravesend<\/a>\u00a0on the 27 May 2020 and died two days later.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Medical evidence concluded her fatal injury was likely to have been inflicted by Zahra being thrown to the floor or against a wall.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Jan Gholami, 33,\u00a0was convicted at Maidstone Crown Court\u00a0<\/a>and was also found guilty of cruelty to a child.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A judge said he “habitually” treated female family members in a “brutal and brutish way”, and sentenced him to a minimum of 23-and-a-half years in prison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Gholami’s wife, Roqia Ghulami, 32, was sentenced to two years in jail after being found guilty of cruelty to a person under 16.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She had previously been found not guilty of murder and the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the charge of allowing the death of a child.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The pair – who\u00a0denied all charges<\/a>\u00a0– had adopted Zahra from Afghanistan, where they both had lived before moving to the UK.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Zahra<\/picture><\/span><\/div>
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Zahra suffered a skull fracture caused by “significant impact with significant energy”, jurors heard (Image: Kent Police)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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On Friday, Judge Mr Justice Wall said Gholami could have sought help for Zahra by dialling 999 or calling a friend.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He said: “I sentence you not on the basis that your fatal attack was a one-off, but rather that it was the culmination of the brutal and brutish way you habitually treated the female members of your family.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He said instead of Gholami immediately seeking help, he went to a supermarket.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“You did that while Zahra was on the floor fighting for her life – if there had been any hope of saving her, your actions made it less likely she’d survive,” he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Roqia<\/picture><\/span><\/div>
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Roqia Ghulami, 32, will serve two years for child cruelty (Image: Kent Police)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Police said evidence was presented during the trial of previous incidents where Gholami had been violent towards his partner and, as a result, had served a short jail sentence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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To Ghulami, Mr Justice Wall said her “criminality was to ensure suffering of your daughter”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The judge told her: “You were in an abusive relationship and had recently left Afghanistan and had no support outside of him – you had no English and no friends to whom you could turn to help.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Despite that, you knew that your duty as a mother was to protect your daughter from everything and everyone – and that included your husband.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Zahra had been described as a “bright, intelligent” child who was “highly curious” and wanted to find out about everything.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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During examinations, doctors found evidence of older injuries, which included a skull fracture, and a healing fracture to her arm and shoulder blade, police added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Following sentencing, Det Insp Ross Gurden said Zahra had been “betrayed in the most brutal way”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He said: “Zahra would have thought she was being cared for by people who loved her. Gholami inflicted catastrophic injuries on Zahra, and his partner failed to intervene to help her.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The adoptive father of a two-year-old girl has been jailed for life for her murder. Zahra Ghulami sustained head injuries\u00a0at their home in Gravesend\u00a0on the 27 May 2020 and died two days later. Medical evidence […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[2992,4349,6736,6950,10162,7071],"class_list":{"0":"post-27209","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-uk","9":"tag-afghanistan","10":"tag-child-cruelty","11":"tag-gravesend","12":"tag-kent-police","13":"tag-maidstone","14":"tag-maidstone-crown-court","15":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27209"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27212,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27209\/revisions\/27212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}