CAIRO: Egyptian real estate tycoon Hisham Talaat Mustafa has appealed a verdict that convicted him of hiring a man to kill Lebanese pop star Suzanne Tamim in Dubai in July 2008. His lawyers, according to Egypt's MENA news agency, say they are appealing to have him cleared of all charges. In September, a retrial convicted Mustafa of ordering the murder of Tamim and reduced an earlier death sentence to 15 years in prison. Tamim was Mustafa's ex-girlfriend. Mustafa was found guilty in September of hiring a former Egyptian police officer to kill the 30-year-old pop star for allegedly $2 million. For Egyptians, who had been watching the situation, the ruling restores some limited faith in the judicial system. A group of businessmen at a local cafe on Wednesday were discussing the trial and told Bikya Masr they believe “the court did the right thing by giving them long jail time.” Omar Hussein, a Qatari-Egyptian executive, told Bikya Masr that “the ruling is just because we don't want to get in the habit of sentencing people to death, but it is strong enough to ruin his life, as it should be for what he did.” On March 4, in ordering the retrial, the court said the original verdict had “mistakes in implementing the law” and that the original court failed to respond to core requests from the defense team. The details of the killing are scary, worthy of a primetime murder mystery or horror show. According to the prosecution in the original trial, Mustafa hired the former Egyptian state security officer, to kill Tamim. Prosecutor-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud described the crime as a “vengeful act.” Reports indicate that Tamim had ended a three-year affair with the businessman and had recently left Cairo for Dubai. Sukkari was arrested less than two hours after the killing, when Dubai police followed him back to the hotel he was staying at. According to police reports, Sukkari claimed Tamim was already dead when he arrived at her apartment, but a shirt with the singer's blood on it were enough evidence to arrest the Egyptian. Shortly before the trial started last fall, Ali El Din Hilal, NDP secretary for media affairs, told Arab satellite television network Orbit that the indictment is clear evidence that “the ruling party knows no cronyism and that nobody in Egypt is above the law.” Mustafa's arrest, Hilal continued, revealed that a review of the relationship between big business and government is overdue. “The lack of any legal framework regulating the relationship between wealth and power opens the door wide for corruption, conflicts of interest and cronyism.” “They [the government] understand how important image abroad is and with Obama having come to Egypt, it is vital for Cairo to be seen as moving forward, even when the majority of the population continues to languish in horrific conditions.” Human Rights groups have been critical of Egypt's use of the death penalty. Last year, 24 people were sentenced to death in one decision and 11 Egyptians were also sentenced to death by hanging in a similar decision. “It is something that needs to be looked at closely,” said Hafez Abu Saeda, the head of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), last year, “because throughout the world we have seen that the more people are put to death this increases the use of violence in society. Is this the Egypt we want?” BM
