Region | Egypt
Lawyers' strike forces delay of Suzan murder case
Egyptian lawyers' strike prompts Cairo court to postpone until September 25 the trial over Suzan Tamim's murder
- By Ramadan Al Sherbini, Correspondent
- Published: 08:32 June 30, 2010
- Image Credit: EPA
- Hesham Talaat Moustafa (pictured) and security man Mohsin Al Sukkari were arrested in September 2008 and found guilty by a criminal court in May 2009 for Suzan Tamim's murder.
Cairo: A nationwide strike by Egyptian lawyers has prompted a Cairo court to defer until September 25 the trial of a business mogul and a former policeman accused of murdering a Lebanese singer in Dubai nearly two years ago.
The delay decision was the second to be taken by the Criminal Court outside Cairo in this high-profile case after defence lawyers for Hesham Talaat Mustafa, a leading Egyptian construction mogul, and Mohsin Al Sukkari, a former State security police officer, told the court they would mot plead their case because of the strike declared more than two weeks by their union due to a sharp dispute between lawyers and prosecutors.
Tuesday’s brief hearing was held amid tight security. Egyptian courts usually start their summer recess in July.
In May 2008, another court sentenced Hesham and Mohssen to death for murdering Suzan with which the former had a brief love affair.
Last March, however, the Court of Cassation, Egypt’s highest judicial authority, accepted appeals from the two convicts and ordered their retrial.
Mustafa, a former MP and a senior politician in President Hosni Mubarak's party, is accused of ordering Mohsin to kill Tamim allegedly for spurning his advances and bilking him out of huge sums of money.
The case has generated media frenzy across the Arab world since it came to the surface in July 2008.
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