Sydney woman gets extra year in jail for killing and dismembering abusive husband

A Sydney court sentenced 55-year-old Nirmeen Noufl on Friday, months after she pleaded guilty to killing her husband, Mamdouh, in excessive self-defence. Noufl said the killing occurred while her husband was choking and assaulting her at their home in Greenacre.

Noufl has remained in custody since her arrest in October 2024, when she was initially charged with murder. Prosecutors later accepted her guilty plea to the lesser charge, in part because her husband's body was never found, making her account of the killing impossible to test or contradict.

The crown prosecutor told the court that the disposal of the body was the key reason the murder charge could not proceed. Justice Peter Hamill said the disposal had been as thorough as it was brutal, and that the conduct afterward was relevant to questions of remorse.

Sustained abuse a key factor

The judge said an extremely traumatic childhood combined with sustained domestic violence mitigated the seriousness of the offence, describing the marriage as marked by violence, psychological manipulation and coercive control. According to facts agreed in court, Mamdouh Noufl held conservative Islamic views and was controlling toward his wife and daughters.

Days before his death, he told Noufl he had met another woman in Egypt and planned to marry her, but refused her request for a divorce. An argument later that day escalated into an assault in which he choked and pinned her down.

Afterward, Noufl dismembered her husband's body with a saw and disposed of it in garbage bags across south-west Sydney. His remains were never recovered. One of the couple's daughters told the court she would give up her life abroad immediately to help her mother attend psychiatric appointments once released. Noufl will become eligible for parole in October 2027.