The foreign minister has ordered the Egyptian embassy in Beirut to make urgent phone calls to Lebanese authorities guaranteeing that those who murdered an Egyptian citizen and mutilated his corpse are brought to justice, according to a statement yesterday by Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hossam Zaki. Mohamed Salim Massalem, 38, was murdered by a crowd in the Lebanese village of Katramaya last Thursday after being accused of a quadruple homicide. Zaki said that Egyptian Foreign Minsitry authorities look forward to the Lebanese government taking necessary procedures. He also said that the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs would express its regret, denounce the incident and at the same time condemn the brutal murder of four Lebanese citizens. The victim's mother said she had kept herself cloistered at home for ten hours fearing the wrath of the villagers, and that she had heard their voices as they were killing her son and mutilating his corpse. "The rape case filed against my son is fabricated," said the mother in a phone call with Al-Masry Al-Youm from Lebanon, referring to an earlier sexual assault charge leveled against Massalem. An official with Lebanese internal security services revealed that investigators could not obtain any confessions regarding the murder, saying that the mother of the two murdered girls insisted on accusing someone else. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
