An aboriginal man with an IQ of 62 has been jailed for murdering a Bangladeshi international student with a paver tile inside his squalid and overcrowded share house in Darwin.
Tiwi Islander Brendan Kantilla, 31, pleaded not guilty to murdering Md ‘Sifat’ Isfaqur Rahman, 23, in May 2023, but a jury rejected his mental impairment defence last week after about three hours of deliberations on Monday.
Then on Thursday Northern Territory Supreme Court Justice Sonia Brownhill gave Kantilla the mandatory sentence of life with a non-parole period of 20 years.
The trial heard that Mr Rahman and another student were returning to the three-bedroom house in Millner that they shared with 13 other students at about 2am on May 3 after finishing a shift as cleaners when Kantilla demanded a cigarette, and threatened to return after a verbal altercation.
Kantilla came back later, entered the house through the back door, and struck Mr Rahman’s head with a paver as he was sleeping, leaving him with horrific facial injuries.
He then began rummaging through his victim’s belongings, and when Mr Rahman started having a seizure he struck him twice more in the head with a fire extinguisher to silence him, before being chased from the property by other students.
Mr Rahman, who had come to Australia to study three months earlier, died in hospital after 30 hours on life support, and a post-mortem found he suffered a brain haemorrhage, multiple skull and facial fractures, broken eye sockets and a fractured sinus, and a doctor determined he died of blunt force trauma.
Kantilla’s defence lawyer Phillip Boulten SC argued that his client was “mentally impaired” and should only be found guilty of manslaughter, citing findings by neuropsychologist Dr Laura Scott that Kantilla had an IQ of 62, NT News reported.
Dr Scott told the court that Kantilla said in an interview he “did not want to kill” Mr Rahman, only hurt him, and that she found he had the organisational ability of a nine-year-old and the ready ability of a 10-year-old.
But Prosecutor Lloyd Babb SC argued the murder involved a “high degree of planning”, Kantilla had understood the level of force he used, and that he did not have any underlying mental or physiological conditions.
He relied on another Victoria-based neuropsychologist, Dr Peter Ashkar, who told the court his findings were similar to Dr Scott’s, but argued that he understood the difference between right and wrong, was capable of inhibitory control, and did not have an intellectual disability.
The court also heard that Kantilla was told by the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency not to be interviewed by police after his arrest, but the next day he went against the legal advice, laughing and appearing happy in a police interview about the murder.
The murder sparked calls for safer housing for international students at Charles Darwin University after it was revealed Mr Rahman was paying $100 a week to live with 13 other students in a three-bedroom home due to high rental prices and a lack of purpose-built student accommodation in the city.
Header image: Left, Brendan Kantilla (Facebook). Right, Md ‘Sifat’ Isfaqur Rahman (Bangladeshi Student Association).
The post Aboriginal man jailed for life for murdering Bangladeshi student in Darwin first appeared on The Noticer.
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