‘Disposal of the body in this case was as thorough as it was brutal,’ justice Peter Hamill said when sentencing 55-year-old Nirmeen Noufl
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A woman who lied to police multiple times to cover up killing and dismembering her abusive husband will spend a further 12 months in jail.
Nirmeen Noufl was sentenced on Friday after pleading guilty in August to killing her husband Mamdouh in excessive self-defence while she was being choked and assaulted in their Sydney home.
The 55-year-old has been in custody since her arrest in October 2024 when she was originally charged with murder before prosecutors accepted an admission to the lesser charge.
Crown prosecutor Mark Hay told the court the disposal of Mamdouh Noufl’s body meant the 55-year-old’s version of events had to be accepted and a murder charge could not be pursued.
An extremely traumatic childhood followed by severe domestic violence mitigated the seriousness of the killing, but the dismemberment was important to the case, the judge said.
“Disposal of the body in this case was as thorough as it was brutal,” justice Peter Hamill said on Friday.
“The conduct after the killing is remarkable and chilling ... and is also relevant to issues such as remorse.”
A key factor in sentencing was the sustained history of abuse she suffered at her husband’s hand, culminating in the attack she said she was experiencing when she stabbed her husband.
“This was a gravely abusive relationship featuring violence, psychological manipulation and coercive control,” the judge said.
Noufl wiped away tears in court as Hamill outlined the circumstances of extreme violence and abuse in her childhood and marriage.
The judge indicated members of Mamdouh Noufl’s family would likely be disappointed with the sentence.
“I hope all of you understand ... there will seem to be a gap between the loss you have suffered forever and the sentence I impose,” the judge said.
Mamdouh Noufl held conservative Islamic views and was controlling of his wife and daughters, according to the agreed facts.
Just days before his death in their Greenacre home, he told his wife he met a woman in Egypt months earlier whom he planned to marry. But he denied Noufl’s request for a divorce.
When he returned home later that day, they got into an argument and he assaulted her, choking her as he pinned her to the ground, Noufl later told psychiatrists.
“All my life ... he just treated me like shit, spat at me,” the 55-year-old told a confidante after the killing. “I had enough.”
Noufl dismembered her husband’s body using a saw and disposed of it in multiple garbage bags across south-west Sydney.
His body was never found and her claim that she stabbed him only once in the chest could not be tested.
One of Noufl’s daughters told the court she would immediately uproot her life abroad and stay in Australia to help her mother attend psychiatric appointments, when she is released.
“If she were to be released tomorrow, I would cancel my flight,” the daughter, who can’t be identified for legal reasons, said.
The 55-year-old will be eligible for parole in October 2027.