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Samoa infanticide case sees mom jailed ten years

Entrance to Tafaigata Prison.[SN file photo]

A woman in Samoa has been jailed for ten years for flushing her newborn baby down a toilet.

Vesi Enele, in her 20s, opted to plead guilty to a charge of murder rather than go through a hearing.

The Samoa Observer reports that police had said that in 2015, while visiting friends in Vaiusu, the young mother gave birth to the child then tried to flush the newborn down the toilet.

Although the sentence for murder is life imprisonment, the woman's attorney Teo Richard Faaiuaso sought a decade long sentence .

Judge Mata Tuatagaloa told the defendant he accepted this request so she would not spend time the rest of her life in prison.