A Tunisian national has been locked up indefinitely in a psychiatric hospital for killing and nearly beheading a 19-year-old Indian-origin student at her university accommodation in London in 2022. Maher Maaroufe, 24, stabbed his girlfriend Sabita Thanwani, an aspiring psychologist, in the neck at Arbour House student flats in the Clerkenwell area of London on March 19, 2022.<\/p>\n
Appearing before the Old Bailey last year, Maaroufe, of no fixed address, admitted manslaughter by means of diminished responsibility, saying he was suffering from schizoaffective disorder at that time. He also pleaded guilty to a charge of assault by beating an emergency worker.<\/p>\n
While sentencing him on Monday, Judge Nigel Lickley KC said Maaroufe attacked the \u201cheight\u201d of a psychotic episode, the BBC reported. He said Maaroufe had been \u201caggressive\u201d and \u201ccontrolling\u201d towards Thanwani during their relationship and hit her at least once, and that his behaviour may have been part of his \u201cemerging illness.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSabita had her whole life ahead of her. You ended her life. Your actions will continue to cause enduring pain and suffering,\u201d the judge told Maaroufe. The Old Bailey heard that Maaroufe, who entered the UK legally on an unknown date but had overstayed, was in the process of claiming asylum at the time of the incident.<\/p>\n
According to the prosecution, during his psychotic episodes, Maaroufe smoked cannabis and thought that Thanwani was a \u201cmale devil.\u201d The evening before the attack, they met outside a mosque and spent time in central London. After they had returned to Thanwani\u2019s accommodation, other students heard her shouting \u201cstop\u201d, \u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d and \u201cI beg you, don\u2019t kill me\u201d, following which emergency services were alerted.<\/p>\n
Police saw blood stains around the bed, as well as blankets and duvets on the floor of Thanwani\u2019s room. She was pronounced dead at the scene at 6 am, and a post-mortem examination gave her cause of death as sharp force trauma to the neck. Maaroufe was found by police asleep under a tarpaulin in a garden shed, and allegedly head-butted a police officer while trying to evade arrest.<\/p>\n
Thanwani\u2019s family, in a statement released at the time of her death, described her as \u201cour angel\u201d and said she had a \u201cradiant smile and incredible heart.\u201d The family described Maaroufe as an \u201cevil, sadistic murderer, his actions were calculated to kill her because she rejected him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Tunisian national has been locked up indefinitely in a psychiatric hospital for killing and nearly beheading a 19-year-old Indian-origin\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":25184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[1445,8274,2108,5273,8272,8273,8275,8278,8276,8279,8277,8271,339],"class_list":["post-25181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-asylum","tag-beheading","tag-death","tag-family","tag-indian-origin-student","tag-killing","tag-london","tag-maher-maaroufe","tag-psychiatric-hospital","tag-sabita-thanwani","tag-schizoaffective-disorder","tag-tunisian-national","tag-uk"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}