A Mansoura Criminal Court sought the non-binding opinion of Egypt's Grand Mufti on Tuesday regarding the preliminary death sentences handed to three defendants for killing a five-year-old girl in 2020 in Dakahlia governorate. The court also sentenced a minor defendant in the case to 15 years in prison, as he has not reached adulthood. The defendants are Ahmed Hassan, 18, Nour Al-Din Ahmed, 20, and Mohamed Abdel Salam, 21, who are all residents of Al-Arish city in North Sinai governorate, along Ahmed Mohamed, 17, who lives in Sharkia. The case goes back to June 2020 when – according to the prosecution – the perpetrators kidnapped Arwa Abdel Nabi Hamdy from Sharkia governorate for ransom and she died after suffocating in a bag in the back of the car. After the defendants discovered the child had passed away, they threw her body into agricultural land in Dakahlia to be discovered later. The investigations revealed that Arwa's mother reported her missing a day later and that the kidnapping was plotted with the assistance of one of the defendants' mothers.
