Murder accused found hanged in jail (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Murder accused found hanged in jail

5:44am Wednesday 10th October 2007 in News By Paddy McGuffin

A husband accused of murdering his pregnant wife in Bradford earlier this year has been found hanged while on remand at Leeds Prison.

Kassa Osebu, 30, had been remanded in custody for allegedly stabbing his pregnant wife to death at their home in Ure Crescent, White Abbey, Bradford.

The death was revealed yesterday in a formal hearing at Bradford Crown Court when the murder charges were officially dropped.

Maserat Tabesse, also 30, a mother-of-two, was found fatally injured having been repeatedly stabbed. She was rushed to Bradford Royal Infirmary but died a short time later.

Neighbours had been alerted by screams coming from the front garden of the premises. Witnesses said they had seen a man, believed to be Osebu, repeatedly stabbing the victim in the back and neck.

Osebu, who had arrived in the UK from Ethiopia in 2002, appeared at Bradford Crown Court on July 4, charged with murder and spoke only to confirm his details through an interpreter. An application for bail was refused following prosecution objections and the accused was remanded to the jail in Armley to appear yesterday for a further preliminary hearing followed by a trial in December.

Addressing the court yesterday, the Honorary Recorder of Bradford, Judge Stephen Gullick, formally dropped the charges stating that the accused had been found dead in his cell at the prison on September 28.

An inquest into the circumstances of Osebu's death will be held at a date to be fixed. A spokesman for the Prison Service confirmed that Osebu had died at Leeds Prison. She said: "We can confirm that Kassa Osebu died a self-inflicted death in the early hours of the morning on September 28, 2007. He was found hanging in his cell. The prisoner had not been identified as being at risk of self-harm. He was a foreign national who arrived at the jail on July 4."

A spokesman for Leeds police said: "We were called to the prison at around 6am on September 28. There was nothing suspicious about the death and it was passed on to the Prison Service."

Judge Gullick said that due to the fact that no next of kin had been traced Mr Osebu would be buried in a pauper's grave. It is believed that the responsibility for the burial will fall to Leeds City Council as Osebu died in its jurisdiction.