By Jose Medina
SACRAMENTO – A husband who allegedly cut his wife with a knife in front of their children because he believed she was unfaithful is now set for trial after his preliminary hearing in Sacramento County Superior Court Tuesday.
Judge Delbert W. Oros found a 2nd Amended Complaint against Mohamed D. Ahmadi was appropriate—he is now charged with attempted murder and the use of a dangerous, deadly weapon to cause great bodily injury in the attempted murder.
His victim was his wife of 27 years.
The incident took place on Aug. 30, 2019, at an apartment in Sacramento. The victim was getting ready to register for school when she was told by her husband, the defendant, to come back inside during a marital dispute.
Allegedly, he then proceeded to draw a knife and cut the victim across the abdomen while covering her mouth. The victim’s children witnessed the incident.
According to Detective Alex Zakrzewski, who was called in as a witness, the victim’s downstairs neighbor told the detective that he could hear children screaming, “Help, my Dad is killing my Mom!” from upstairs. The children’s screams immediately alerted the victim’s neighbors.
Zakrzewski stated for the record that the victim’s neighbor immediately ran upstairs to check the apartment. The neighbor entered through the open door of the apartment and “saw a male standing 
there with blood on his grey sweatpants, he was holding a knife.” Det. Zakrzewski then stated that the neighbor told the male, Ahmadi, to leave and took a picture of the victim lying down on the floor.
Apparently, Ahmadi complied with the neighbor’s request and left the scene. Zakrzewski described the photograph as “a photograph of the victim who was lying on the ground whose insides were exposed.” The victim received a laceration from the incident and was taken to the Mercy San Juan Hospital, he said.
Zakrzewski was informed by the victim that “they began arguing because he believed she was unfaithful to him and he retrieved a knife from the couch he kept hidden. He then covered her mouth and got her kidney.” The defendant seemed to have the intention of using the knife at some point which would explain why he kept it hidden within range, surmised the detective.
Wanting to know more about the motives behind Ahmadi’s attack against the victim, he asked the victim if she asked Ahmadi why he was attacking her. She recalled that Ahmadi “told her that he wanted to kill her.” She then said that he proceeded to cut her abdomen. The testimonies and photograph seem to suggest Ahmadi’s intentions were to cause great harm to the victim.
Ahmadi’s defense attorney, Stephen Nelson, disputed the premeditation counts in the second amended felony charge against Ahmadi. Nelson argued that the defendant did not cut the victim at the throat or heart and therefore did not intent to kill the victim.
Nelson stated that he wouldn’t argue against the case being an assault, but that there isn’t sufficient evidence to say Ahmadi premeditated this assault with the intentions to kill the victim based on the location of the cut.
Judge Oros disagreed with the defense and stated “the defendant covered the victim’s mouth in combination of the fact that he invited her back in the apartment, took her into the bedroom, got the knife before going into the bedroom and gave an incriminating statement. All of this is sufficient cause to believe the defendant is guilty premeditated of Counts 1 and 2.”
Judge Oros ruled the second amended felony charges to be sufficient and that Ahmadi’s case would continue on with arraignment, and that testimony and evidence were enough to find Ahmadi to be guilty of the charges presented against him. The defendant is scheduled for an arraignment hearing Sept. 16 at 1:30 p.m. in Department 60.
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