Suspect's brother: Kidnapped baby shaken to death
The man being held by Upper Darby police in the kidnapping of his girlfriend's baby told his brother that he shook the boy to death because the infant would not stop crying, according to court records.
The man being held by Upper Darby police in the kidnapping of his girlfriend's baby told his brother that he shook the boy to death because the infant would not stop crying, according to court records.
Ummad Rushdi, 30, was arrested Wednesday as he tried to run out the back door of his house in York. At the time, he had $800, handcuffs, and a knife on him.
He is charged with kidnapping, endangering the welfare of a child, and other crimes, and is being held in lieu of $750,000 bail.
Jawwad Rushdi, 31, told police that his brother said he killed the child, Hamza Ali, at a residence in Upper Darby by shaking him, according to the application for a search warrant for the York house.
Ummad Rushdi said he made a failed attempt at CPR before he took Hamza Ali and buried him, court records say. He did not tell Jawwad Rushdi where he hid the child's body, the warrant says.
Michael J. Chitwood, Upper Darby police superintendent, said his officers, along with FBI agents, continued a search Thursday in the York area for the child's remains.
They were hoping to get probable cause to upgrade the charges to include murder, he said.
Officers reinterviewed the baby's mother, identified in court documents as Zainab Gaal, 30, who was born in Somalia and raised in Yemen, Chitwood said. Her parents live in Lewiston, Maine, he said.
Chitwood also said that Jawwal Rushdi had told police the FBI had been to the York house three times since 2005 to question the brothers about their "political activities."
Gaal told police that Ummad Rushdi was "violent" and "brutal" and hit her and Hamza Ali on prior occasions, Chitwood said. She is in hiding, he said.
The two have been together about three months and were recently "married" in a ceremony, Chitwood said. The marriage, he said, was not legal.
At a Wednesday news conference, Chitwood said that Ummad Rushdi had complained that the child was "interfering with the relationship" between him and the infant's mother.
Police have not been able to contact the father of Hamza Ali, who was born Jan. 8, Chitwood said.
Gaal contacted police when Jawwad Rushdi told her something "terrible" had happened to her child.
According to court records, Rushdi was arrested in May 2012 on charges of making terroristic threats, disorderly conduct, and possessing an instrument of crime.
