Egyptian Businessman Who Denies Murder Shown Photos of Dead Lover
THE TELEGRAPH: An Egyptian businessman accused of killing his lover, a Lebanese singer, has been shown gruesome photographs of her dead body.

Hishaam Talaat Moustafa, a property and hotels magnate with close ties to the Egyptian government, is being retried on murder charges for which he was sentenced to hang last year.

Opening the case against him in a Cairo court, the prosecution displayed pictures of Suzanne Tamim lying on the floor of her Dubai flat with her throat slit. She also had wounds indicating she tried to defend herself in a struggle.

The court was also shown closed circuit television footage taken from the apartment block, in Dubai's Jumeirah Beach Residences complex.

In it, a man identified as Mohsen el-Sukkari, a security officer working in one of Mr Moustafa's hotels, was seen to enter on the day in July 2008 that Miss Tamim was killed. Prosecutors say that, acting on Moustafa's orders, he gained access pretending to work for the apartment's owners and killed her when she answered her door. >>> Samer al-Atrush in Cairo | Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Related links here and here.

Egyptian Businessman Denies Murdering Lebanese Pop Star
THE TELEGRAPH: One of Egypt's most powerful businessmen has denied murdering his Lebanese pop singer lover in a case that has caused fascination across the Middle East.

Hisham Talaat Moustafa appeared in court along with one of his employees, Mohsen el-Sukkari, a former state security officer, who police say slit the throat of Suzanne Tamim in her Dubai apartment.

"It didn't happen. None of that happened," Mr Moustafa, dressed in white prison clothes, told the court from the black cage in which the men were held.

The two men have already been sentenced to hang by a court in Cairo, but a retrial was ordered by an appeal judge citing legal irregularities in the lower court.

The judge said defence requests went ignored in the trial and Mr Sukkari was first questioned in the absence of a lawyer.

The trial was postponed to Wednesday to allow the defence to review evidence. >>> Samer al-Atrush in Cairo | Monday, April 26, 2010

Related / Verbunden:

FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: Ägypten: Millionär soll wegen Mordes hingerichtet werden >>> dpa | Donnerstag, 21. Mai 2009

Ägypten: Millionär soll wegen Mordes hingerichtet werden
Suzanne Tamim war in der arabischen Welt ein Star. Bild dank der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung
FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG (FAZ): Ein ägyptischer Millionär ist am Donnerstag für den Mord an der libanesischen Pop-Sängerin Suzan Tamim zum Tode verurteilt worden. Ein Gericht in Kairo hielt den einflussreichen Unternehmer und Politiker für schuldig, den Mord an seiner ehemaligen Geliebten in Auftrag gegeben zu haben. Die bildhübsche Sängerin Tamim war Ende Juli vergangenen Jahres, mit mehreren Messerstichen ermordet, in ihrer Wohnung in Dubai gefunden worden.

Der Großindustrielle Hisham Talaat Mustafa, der auch Mitglied des Schura-Rates, des Oberhauses des ägyptischen Parlaments, ist, war im September verhaftet worden. Er soll nun gehängt werden. Das Gericht sprach ihn schuldig, einen seiner Bodyguards mit dem Mord beauftragt zu haben. Auch dieser Mann, ein pensionierter Polizist, wurde zum Tode verurteilt. >>> dpa | Donnerstag, 21. Mai 2009