Bitter lemons for orange orchard killers: About a year ago, this column reported that two young men were found dead in suspicious circumstances in an orange orchard near Benha. Since then, two men, Ayman Mohamed (20) and Mohamed el-Sayyed (22), have been arrested, tried and sentenced to death for their murder. It was Benha Criminal Court which found the condemned, both of them workers from Alexandria, guilty. Their two victims, Hani Mohamed and Fathi Hussein (both 18), were from Kafr el-Sheikh Governorate and students at Al-Azhar University. The two workers had got talking to the two students while they were travelling on the train from Alexandria to Cairo. They lured them off the train at Benha Station and got them to accompany them to the orchard, where they killed them and stole their possessions. Ali and Assem: Police have made two arrests in the case of the murder of a driver from the village of Aneebis near Juhaiyna in Sohag Governorate, whose body was found floating in a canal near Tima two weeks ago. Another driver and the son of the latter's sister got the victim to drive them to some remote fields. There, they both stabbed him to death, so they could steal his vehicle. Uncle and nephew have now been arrested and the victim's truck retrieved. A fortnight ago, a member of the public spotted the corpse in the Mishta Canal near Tima and police identified the body as that of Moustafa Abdel-Aal (21), from Aneebis. He was murdered by two young men from the same village – Ali Ali (28) and his 23-yearold nephew, Assem Mohamed. Ali and Assem, who have a reputation for stealing cars, had driven Moustafa's truck north to Assiut Governorate, where they'd parked it in a quiet side street in el-Fath. They were planning to sell it, once the hue and cry had died down. Cold blood and bad blood:Aman, his wife and his ex-wife have been remanded in custody in Shubra el-Kheima, on suspicion of the cold-blooded murder of his 72-year-old mother, Botheina Kamel, in order to steal her jewellery. His two daughters have been bailed in the same case. The first suspect's ex-wife has accused him and his second wife of everything, while the latter blames his first wife. Botheina was found dead in her flat in Shubra. Detectives are still questioning the suspects. What is patently obvious is that there was – and still is – bad blood, between Botheina's daughterin- law and former daughter-in-law. Domestic punishment: In another domestic incident, two brothers tortured the son of their maternal aunt to death in the Raml district of Alexandria. This was punishment for his immoral behaviour and the fact that he beat up his mother. The victim's paternal uncle helped his two cousins tie him up and club him to death, after burning his body with lighted cigarettes. It was the deceased's mother, 47-year-old Ihsan Ibrahim, who told police that she was walking home when she found her son in a dreadful state in the street; he died a few moments later. Detectives have arrested the young man's uncle, Abdullah Darwish, a 35-year-old worker; el-Sayyed Moussa, a 31-year-old worker and the victim's cousin; and Sayyed's brother, a 35 year-old worker called Ramadan. They have admitted killing their cousin.
