CONVICTED killer Mohammed Ali Johari was hanged at Changi Prison on Friday morning, said the police.

He had been found guilty of murdering his two-year-old step-daughter, widely known as Nonoi, and was sentenced to death last August.

In April, a final court bid to escape the gallows was dismissed by the High Court.

His lawyer R.S Bajwa had then argued that Ali, who had dunked the girl in a pail of water, had no intention of causing the child bodily injury. Even if he had, the intended injury was minor, he added.

However Judge of Appeal V.K. Rajah dismissed this line of argument, calling what Ali did 'the cruelest thing you can do to a child'.

Nonoi, or Nur Asyura Mohamed Fauzi was believed to have gone missing from the Circuit Road flat belonging to Ali's parents on March 1, 2006.

Ali initially put on a charade and blamed his father and younger brother for not taking good care of her. He even joined in the search for the missing child.

He only confessed to the killing three days later, claiming that her death was accidental.

He told the authorities that Nonoi had began crying while they were in their Pipit Road flat. Wanting to pacify her, he slapped and punched her but she did not stop, so he dunked her in a pail of water. She died after the third dunking, he then said.

For months, he told the police that he had left her in the pail of water to take a phone call.

However, it later surfaced in court that that no such call came for him. He then changed his story to say that he had heard a ringing noise but told police that he answered a call because he was confused.

He carried Nonoi's body to his parents' flat and later dumped her body under the Aljunied flyover.

An autopsy showed that she had been molested before her death.

The definite cause of death could not be ascertained although the condition of her lungs was consistent with those of a drowning victim.