The Harrison man charged with stabbing his mother and hitting her with a maul used to split firewood admitted to the attack when confronted by a police officer, court records say.

The records only hint at what might have motivated Mohamed Noh, 24, to stab his mother multiple times with a knife and strike her with a splitting maul as she tended the family’s goats Friday evening. Halimo Azair, 49, suffered serious injuries to her head, face and arms.

Noh’s brother Shuaeb Noh said in a report filed by police that he believed the assault was related to alleged abuse he and his brothers suffered at the hands of Azair’s ex-boyfriend, but the report contains no details about those accusations.

Mohamed Noh Cumberland County Jail

Mohamed Noh is charged with one count of elevated aggravated assault and violating the conditions of his release, according to court records. At the hearing, Noh also pleaded not guilty in another case in which he faces misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence and failure to stop for police.

Judge MaryGay Kennedy ordered Noh held in lieu of $75,000 bail on Monday. The amount was suggested by District Attorney Jonathan Sahrbeck, who represented the state during the brief court appearance. Noh’s attorney for the day, Daniel Wentworth, reserved the right to argue bail at a later date. Noh did not speak.

If Noh is released on bail, he must comply with a host of conditions including a prohibition on the use or possession of alcohol or illegal drugs, submission to random search and testing for those substances, and a ban on contact with his brothers or mother.

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The attack occurred at their home on Dawes Hill Road shortly before 8 p.m., after Azair returned from a mosque in Portland, Shuaeb Noh told police. He said that when his mother went outside to feed their animals in their barn, she and his brother began to argue almost immediately.

Shuaeb Noh said he went back into the house because he didn’t want to deal with the argument. When Mohamed Noh returned to the house a few minutes later, he told his brother that he just killed their mother and told him to contact their father, who lives in Texas. A third brother who was in the house, Khalid Noh, called police.

Cumberland County Sheriff’s Deputy Dennis Mailman, who was the first on the scene, wrote in a report that when he arrived he was greeted by Khalid Noh, who showed him to the area in the barn where his mother lay bleeding and hurt. Police also found a pair of broken glasses, a folding knife and a splitting maul.

Mailman wrote that Azair suffered what looked like four stab wounds to her chest,  clavicle area, wrist and upper arm, and she seemed to also have suffered a head wound. Her left eye and the left side of her head were swollen. She was flown to Maine Medical Center in Portland by helicopter Friday night. The hospital had no information about her condition Monday.

Khalid Noh told Mailman that his brother Mohamed was responsible for the attack. When Mailman found Mohammed and Shuaeb, he ordered them both to the ground.

Mailman asked who hit the mother. “I did,” Mohamed Noh said, according to Mailman’s report. He was handcuffed and placed in a police cruiser.

He declined to talk to police, and asked for an attorney when detectives from the Maine State Police major crimes unit attempted to interrogate him.

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