London: The mother of Mikaeel Kular, the three-year-old boy reported missing from Edinburgh home in January, has admitted killing her son.
Rosdeep Adekoya, 34, had been charged with murder but pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of culpable homicide when she appeared at the high court in Edinburgh on Friday.
Adekoya sparked off a major police and public search for Mikaeel after claiming he had disappeared from her home in Drylaw overnight.
Hundreds of people helped police, coastguards and other volunteers search for him in local streets, woods and shoreline in the two days before his body was found 20 miles (32km) away in woodland in Fife.
The crown accused Adekoya of punching Mikaeel on various occasions between 12 and 15 January, striking his body against a hard object and inflicting blunt force trauma injuries to his head and body.
She was also accused of failing to seek medical attention and murder. Prosecutors said she wrapped the boy in a duvet, put his body in a suitcase and drove him to a house in Fife where the family used to live with a relative before burying him in woodland there.
