Khaleel Hussain was a seemingly happy little boy, just two years old when he was shown with an adorable smile in the above photograph. But just 48 hours after the charming photo of the boy was snapped, little Khaleel was dead.
In fact, it was October 23, 2013, when Khaleel passed away in a Coventry, England, hospital — from what doctors said was a severe brain injury, his young life over before the child ever had a chance.
Doctors said then what prosecutors say now — the child’s death was the result of being violently shaken by an adult, possibly followed by impact with a surface when his killer threw him down.
Now, Khaleel’s mom, 25-year-old Samina Kauser, is on trial for allowing the death of her child. And Kauser’s lover, Keith Brown , 23, is on trial for murder.
Both members of the young couple deny the charges against them in their trial, which started this week.
Brown says that the child’s death was not the result of shaking, but instead a bizarre accident. According to what Brown told the Warwick Crown Court, he threw Khaleel up toward the ceiling of the couple’s Coventry home — then missed him on the way down.
Instead of catching the boy, Brown now claims, he whiffed and Khaleel plunged to the floor head first.
But that’s only the latest version of Brown’s story. Originally, the man claimed that Khaleel simply fell down a flight of stairs.
Prosecutors don’t buy any of that . Just two days before Khaleel suffered his fatal head injury, they say, Kauser caught her boyfriend trying to smother the little boy with a comforter while violently shaking the toddler’s bed.
Brown, who had complained of Khaleel’s “whinging” — that is, whining — stopped the attack when his girlfriend walked in. But Khaleel was silent for a prolonged period afterward, and he suffered bleeding in his eyes and lungs.
According to prosecutors, Brown told police that he was upset because the 2-year-old “acted like a baby,” and “liked crying, and he often faked crying.”
Khaleel’s mom also had little patience with her son, often berating him for soiling his diaper, or for refusing food, screaming at the boy, “Eat your f*****g food, you little b***h!”
Tragically, incidents of fatal hold abuse are not uncommon, as the horrifying story at this link from just last week would indicate.
Less than after the “smothering” incident, the mom went out shopping for a bit more than a half an hour. When she came back, Khaleel was hurt so badly that he had to be rushed to a hospital — where despite emergency surgery and the doctors’ best efforts, the little boy died a day later.
“Miss Kauser described how Mr Brown was in Khaleel’s bedroom smothering Khaleel’s face with his duvet,” prosecutors told the jury Tuesday. “Why? Because he had apparently lost patience with Khaleel who was whinging after bedtime.”
They said that Khaleel was killed deliberately by Brown — and that that after witnessing her lover attack her toddler, the mom knew what could happen if she left him alone with her boyfriend.
[Image: Coventry Police]