74-Y-O Man Sentenced to 60 Days in Prison for Killing 13-Y-O Daughter With Slap Over Chores
A 74-year-old Canadian man who pleaded guilty to unintentionally killing his 13-year-old daughter with a slap over her chores in 2010 was sentenced to a 60-day jail term Wednesday.
According to a report in the Montreal Gazette, Moussa Sidime, 74, a retired architect originally from Guinea, was charged in the death of his 13-year-old daughter Noutène after she died from a slap he meted out to her on Oct. 6, 2010.
Noutène, according to court records, upset her father when she mumbled something under her breath after he told her he wasn't satisfied with the way she had cleaned up the kitchen. Sidime, who entered a guilty plea to manslaughter in 2013, said he noticed that his daughter was crying after he slapped her but he left her to sit in the living room of the family's apartment. He later heard her fall to the kitchen floor where he found her unconscious and with low breathing.
Two days later, his daughter died in a hospital. Her death was attributed to a ruptured artery in her head but it was unclear if the rupture was caused by the slap or from Noutène turning her head away from it.
Judge Richard Marleau who presided over the case said coming up with an appropriate sentence was difficult.
"What sentence should be imposed on the father of a family, with no criminal record, who slaps his 13-year-old daughter and who, against all expectation, causes her death?" he asked.
Although the prosecution argued that only a prison term would serve to denounce Sidime's slap, judge Marleau gave note to the defense's arguments.
"The accused has no criminal record. He doesn't suffer from a deviance or a pathology that would make him a risk, nor does he have a delinquent or violent personality which would bring him to reoffend. He manifestly has drawn the appropriate lessons (from his mistake)," Marleau summarized.