CAIRO: The public prosecutor's office has formally charged Mahmoud El-Sayed Abdel-Hafiz Essawy, 20, with murder in the first degree with intent to commit theft in the case of the killing of Heba Al-Akkad and Nadine Khaled in Sixth of October's Al-Nada compound. He was interrogated for seven hours in the South Giza Preliminary Court. At first Essawy denied he had committed the murders, claiming responsibility only for the theft. It was only when he was taken to the crime scene that he confessed to the murder of Al-Akkad and Khaled in the early hours of last Thursday, according to police sources. Essawy's family denied he had committed the crime, saying he has always been a peaceful person. Although they said it's unlikely for him to steal because he earns around LE 300 a week, they said if he broke into the house with the intent of stealing, as police said, Essawy wouldn't have left the valuable jewelry. Police took Essawy back to the crime scene to reenact the incident. Essawy told police that he waited for an hour and a half in the backyard of the house before taking off his shoes and climbing through the partially open living room window via a tree and sewer pipes, police reports said. He entered the kitchen where he found LE 200, which he took before going into one of the bedrooms. There he found Khaled in a state of fitful sleep, wherein he proceeded to hide behind a curtain for 15 minutes. After he was sure she had gone back to sleep, he stole her mobile phone and proceeded to leave the room, shutting the door behind him. At the point Khaled woke up and went to open the door, which resulted in each of them pulling on the door knob from opposite sides. A sort of push and pull ensued and they fell on top of each other. Essawy put his hand on her mouth to silence her and, according to him, pulled out a knife he had purchased three days earlier and waved it in her face. The accused stated that due to that random swinging of the knife he accidentally cut her throat, but she continued to resist so he proceeded to stab her several times in the torso before wiping his bloody hands on the curtains. At this point, according to Essawy's version of events documented in police reports, Al-Akkad was awoken by the sounds of the struggle and rushed to the living room to find an object to fight him with, but he caught up with her and stabbed her several times before escaping through the same window he came in from. He also stole Al-Akkad's phone, but dropped it while escaping. Along with the LE 200 he had taken in the kitchen. At this point Essawy floundered on his story, saying, he dropped the money and the phone while scaling the fence of the house. He also claimed he had not dumped his clothes near the crime scene as had been previously reported. He said that he took a microbus to Ramses Square before taking a taxi to his home in Rod El Farag. When he got home, his whole family was asleep, and Essawy quickly had dinner before dumping his clothes in a black plastic bag and throwing them in the garbage outside his house. He then went to sleep. Essawy awoke late in Friday where he met a friend of his, Mohammed Durgham, who he gave Khaled's phone to. Asked about the knife with which he committed the murders, Essawy claimed that he lost it with the other mobile and the money. Again he wasn't sure exactly where he lost them.
