Welsh Muslim woman sentenced to life in prison for beating her 7-year-old son to death because he was slow in memorizing the Qur'an

As reported by Liz Keen of Wales News, January 7, 2013:

A mother collapsed in the dock of Cardiff Crown Court after being jailed for life for brutally murdering her seven-year-old son then trying to burn his body.

Maths graduate Sara Ege, 33, first swayed and then fell to floor, just seconds after the judge Mr Justice Wyn Williams announced she would serve a minimum of 17 years behind bars for cruelly beating the little boy when he failed to learn the Koran fast enough.

As she was picked up and helped to her feet by two female dock officers to be led away to the cells, her parents, visting Cardiff from their home in India, both became upset.

Her father, a businessman and retired antique dealer covered his mouth with a hankerchief and sat shaking his head, while her mother, who had arranged her wedding into a Cardiff family, which the judge said she had found difficult, wept.

Sara Ege herself, described as a devoted mother who only wanted her best for her child had been in tears throughout the half-hour sentencing hearing following her conviction a month ago for murder and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

She had denied both offences and blamed others for the violence and the fire at the family in Severn Road, Canton in July 2010.

Her little boy, city primary school pupil Yaseen Ali Ege was at first believed to have died in the blaze which started in his bedroom but was later discovered to have suffered catastrophic internal injuries.

The judge today said he believed she had beaten the little boy, sometimes with a large wooden pestle, over a period of three months as he struggled to learn the Koran to please her.

He told her: "Yaseen must have failed in some way that day and that failure was the trigger for the (final) beating you inflicted."

In confessions Ege made to police but retracted she said her child had collapsed in front of her, still reciting the holy verses as he died.

For the entire article, see pages 1, 2, and 3.