Egyptian tycoon to hang for murder

Hisham Talaat Moustafa, an Egyptian politician and property tycoon has been sentenced to death by hanging for ordering the brutal murder of his ex-lover Suzanne Tamim, a Lebanese singer, following a trial that offers hope that at last the Middle East's rich and powerful may have to fear the law. 

The 49-year-old parliamentarian from Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party - who is a close friend of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's son - was found guilty of paying a former policeman named Mohsen al-Sukkari, £1.3 million to kill and decapitate the 30-year-old pop star after she jilted him. The body of the Beirut-born star was discovered in her Dubai apartment with multiple stab wounds and her throat had been slashed. 

The Egyptian government had placed a media ban on discussing the murder after pictures of the mutilated body of Tamim were splashed across the Middle Eastern media and one leading newspaper suggested that an influential businessman was involved. However, the ban was widely ignored when it emerged some weeks later that Moustafa had been arrested.

Tamim became a star after winning a Lebanese TV talent show in 1996, but despite her professional success, her personal life was a much less happier affair. At the time of meeting Moustafa, a married man, the singer had already been through two divorces and was in the process of a bitter lawsuit with one of her ex-husbands.

According to the prosecution, the pair embarked on an affair that lasted several months before Tamin ended the relationship and fled to London, where she met and became engaged to the Iraqi-born kick-boxing champion Riyadh Alazzawi.

Moustafa is believed to have paid Sukkari to follow his ex-lover from Egypt to London, before ordering him to go on to Dubai where he killed the young woman at her home. The jury heard how Sukkari, armed with a knife, managed to talk his way in to Tamim's apartment after claiming that he was there to carry out some work on the property.

CCTV footage showed Sukkari entering and leaving the apartment on the morning of the murder and the court heard recorded evidence of conversations between Sukkari and Moustafa. In one, Moustafa is heard to suggest that Tamim should be thrown over a balcony or hit by a car. A policeman who interviewed the hitman on his arrest told the court that he had confessed that Moustafa had demanded that he be shown Tamim's severed head before paying up.

Lawyers representing the millionaire businessman expressed outrage at the judge's decision, labelling the verdict "cruel". Samir al-Shishtawi, one of the defence lawyers in the case said: "I want to assure Talaat Moustafa's family that this verdict will be overturned by the appeals court."

Abdel Sattar Tamim, Suzanne's father, said that the family was satisfied with the verdict and said he had "full faith" that it would be upheld. ·