New Zealand: Indian-origin man sentenced for torturing, strangling woman to death

Auckland: A 33-year-old Indian-origin man has been sentenced to more than 19 years in prison in New Zealand for sexually violating and fatally strangling a woman with Down syndrome in 2021, media reports said.
Shamal Sharma showed no signs of emotion in the High Court at Auckland this week as Justice Edwin Wylie set the minimum term of imprisonment for the mandatory life sentence, the NZ Herald reported.
Sharma was arrested in September 2021, two days after 27-year-old Lena Zhang Harrap’s body was discovered about a kilometre away from her Mt. Albert home.
Also Read Texas: 9 dead, 7 injured in shooting at US mall According to court documents, Harrap encountered Sharma early in the morning when she had stepped out for a walk. He tortured her over a period of about two hours, inflicting multiple blows to her face before strangling her, which led to her death.
Sharma left the area after abandoning the victim’s body in the bushes and shrubbery, authorities said, adding that he was apprehended by police two days later.
Harrap received 13 bruises and abrasions to her head, as well as blunt force trauma that caused brain injuries but were not fatal, according to a pathologist.