Moscow nanny says 'Allah ordered' killing

Gyulchekhra Bobokulova, a 38-year-old Muslim woman from Uzbekistan, was ordered to remain in police custody for two months as officers tried to find out why she killed the small child.

Bobokulova, dubbed "bloody nanny" by the press, was looking after the four- or five-year-old girl, Nastya, who was suffering from learning disabilities and epilepsy. She allegedly butchered the girl at the family's apartment in Moscow before fleeing the scene with her severed head.

"It was what Allah ordered," the nanny told journalists as she was being brought into the court on Monday. "Allah is sending a second prophet to give news of peace," Bobokulova said, adding she hadn't been given any food and would "die in a week."

A spokeswoman for the Office of the General Prosecutor said a probe would be launched into the matter. Police investigator Olga Lapteva told the court that the nanny had committed an "extremely serious crime" and that she should face a "mandatory prison sentence of considerably more than three years."

Prosecutors said they believed her accomplices who "incited" her to carry out the killing were still at large.

The suspect has been undergoing psychiatric examinations since her detention. Local newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets" quoted Uzbek police as saying that the woman had been suffering from schizophrenia for 15 years.

Bobokulova was arrested on Monday after witnesses reported seeing an agitated woman with the severed head of a child. She threatened to "blow everyone up" and media reports also said she shouted "Allahu Akbar" as she paced up and down a metro station in Moscow.

Russian national channels have refused to cover the incident, saying it was "probably too monstrous to be covered on television."

The incident has shaken Muscovites, who placed flowers and children's toys outside the subway station where the woman was found.

mg/kms (AFP, AP)