Cairo Criminal Court is due to resume today the case of the killing of Lebanese pop singer Suzanne Tamim. In the dock is State Security former officer Mohsen el-Sukkari and businessman and MP for the National Democratic Party (NDP) Hisham Talaat Mustafa. The first is charged with premeditated murder, while the second is accused of inciting to killing. At the latest session, the Court had decided to summon the UAE officer who had transcribed the tapes of the surveillance cameras in hotels and buildings. In one of this tape, Mohsen el-Sukkari appears in Dubai on July 28, 2008. The court had asked the officer to bring with him the original tapes and the device used to transcribe them in order to show them to the court. The court had also ordered to include Suzanne Tamim's mobile phone in the case evidence. UAE deputy prosecutor Shaeeb Ali Ahli had kept the mobile when he had inspected the singer' body inside the flat, asking Vodafone for the messages and the phone calls between Mohsen el-Sukkari and Hisham Talaat Mustafa. He had also asked when they had been sent and whether the messages had been received by both men. Meanwhile, Justice Minister Mamdouh Marie and Public Prosecutor Abdel Maguid Mahmoud asked Counselor Mohamed Qishta, State Council Deputy Chairman and chief justice of the Administrative Court, to give more time to pleadings in the lawsuit filed by a lawyer who asked to ban foreign and Arab lawyers from defending or pleading in the case. They also asked to put off the ruling, which the Court is due to hand down on January 25. The prosecutor, for his turn, asked the court president not to put off the ruling. He affirmed that the minister and public prosecutor's request did not contain any new reliable information to give more time to pleadings, adding this would hamper the course of justice.
