The retrial of Egyptian business tycoon Hisham Talaat Mustafa and former State Security officer Mohsen al-Sokkari for the alleged murder of Lebanese pop singer Suzanne Tamim has been postponed until next week. Tamim was brutally murdered in Dubai in 2007. The retrial's twelfth session witnessed an altercation between defense lawyer Farid al-Deeb and Court Chairman Adel Abdel Salam Juma. After some deliberation on the part of the defense, al-Deeb requested that the court summon 28 witnesses -- from countries such as Lebanon, the UAE and Egypt -- including UAE Director General of Criminal Investigations Khalil Ibrahim. In a move that irked prosecutors, the defense team also insisted that trial proceedings be relocated to Dubai. "These requests [by the defense] aim at delaying the ruling on this case, which has dragged on for two years," said lawyer for the prosecution Mustafa Suleiman, who asked the court to dismiss the defense team's demands. After some deliberation, the court ruled to postpone proceedings until next Tuesday in order to allow witnesses for the prosecution to testify and a fingerprint expert to be appointed to obtain fingerprints of UK citizen Alex Kazaki, who was known to have had a relationship with Tamim. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
