Woman who drowned baby 'of unsound mind'

(ANSA) - Imperia, February 3 - A court on Wednesday acquitted a woman who drowned her infant son on grounds she is of unsound mind and remanded her to a psychiatric ward.
    Russian national Natalia Sotnikova, 40, was charged with first-degree murder aggravated by cruelty after she drowned 10-month-old Semyon in the sea while holidaying in a luxury hotel on the Liguria coast with her Russian oil broker husband in December 2014.
    She eventually told investigators she killed her baby because she believed he had a serious inherited disease and she didn't want him to suffer.
    The woman reportedly changed her version of events several times, having initially said she did not remember what happened after going to the beach with the child in the middle of the night.
    The alarm was raised when she returned to her hotel several hours later without him.
    At one stage Sotnikova reportedly said she left the infant on rocks in the Liguria town of Bordighera.
    Then she reportedly changed her version of events, saying she waded into to the sea with the baby, initially intending to kill herself as well, but subsequently left him in the water and walked out.