American tourist throws newborn baby out of Paris hotel window
by JAMES REYNOLDS · Mail OnlineA newborn baby died after an American tourist threw the infant out of a hotel window moments after giving birth, local police report.
The 18-year-old mother allegedly threw her baby from the second floor of an Ibis Styles hotel 'with the umbilical cord', authorities said.
The Ibis Styles is a three-star budget hotel off Rue de la Croix Saint-Simon. Rooms go for around £80 on average.
Emergency services took the baby to the Robert Debre hospital after witnesses reported the incident at around 6am this morning.
The street was closed for more than five hours after the incident, sources told MailOnline.
The Paris prosecutor's office told Le Parisien that the child did not survive the fall and succumbed to injuries.
An investigation has been opened for 'homicide of a minor under 15', the city's public prosecutor told the outlet.
The office said that the mother was 'part of a group of young adults travelling in Europe'.
They said she had also been taken to hospital for an operation. She was taken into custody on site, the office said.
The tragedy was reported to have occurred at the hotel in the 20th arrondissement of the city.
The baby was taken to a hospital in the 19th arrondissement.
Witnesses were reportedly 'alerted by screams' before calling the emergency services, according to Paris Match.
The baby was said to have been taken 'in absolute emergency and with a life-threatening prognosis' to the hospital before being declared dead.
'The investigation is underway and the precise circumstances of this tragedy remain to be established,' a person close to the case told the outlet.
Paris local Tassos Xenakis told MailOnline there was no police presence or cordon at the hotel by early this afternoon.
Last year a woman from Germany was found guilty of manslaughter after dropping her newborn baby nearly 12ft from her apartment window allegedly because 'she was worried a baby would ruin her career'.
Katarina Jovanovic was found guilty at the Heilbronn District Court on July 3.
Jovanovic admitted to the crime at the beginning of the trial but could not explain the moment to the court, ASB Zeitung reported.
She also claimed she had not realised she was pregnant. But the prosecution accused her of murder and of deliberately concealing her pregnancy from colleagues and neighbours.
Prosecutors told the court that Jovanovic thought being a mother would spoil her career as an executive in Porsche's legal department.
Public prosecutor Mareike Hafendoerfer said: 'The accused was not prepared to put her life plans, especially her professional advancement, on hold for a child.
'That was her decision when the baby was born, and as a result, the criteria for a murder conviction are fulfilled.'
Defence attorney Malte Hoech said: 'It is a drama that affects me personally. My client did not even know that she was pregnant.
'When she suddenly held the bloody baby in her hands, she was in an exceptional psychological situation.
'It was an accident, she dropped the baby. How the child ended up over the windowsill remains to be determined.'
The court accepted the lesser charge of manslaughter but jailed her for seven and a half years, which was more than the three years the defence had demanded.
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