Cairo: An ex-Egyptian police officer, previously convicted in the murder of Lebanese pop singer Suzan Tamim in Dubai more than a decade ago, has not received a presidential pardon, a lawyer has said.
Mohsin Al Sukkari is serving three years in jail in a different case after he was convicted of money laundering and ordered by an Egyptian court to pay a fine of $3 million.
In the past few days, claims have gone round that Al Sukkari is among several inmates receiving presidential pardons.
However, the pardon claims for the ex-state security officer were dismissed as baseless.
“The presidential pardon committee confirms that all is circulated these days regarding issuance of a presidential pardoned for Mohsin Al Sukkari is incorrect and completely baseless,” lawyer Tareq Al Awadi, a member of the committee, said on his Facebook page.
Several political activists have been released from prison in Egypt in the past few days by virtue of presidential pardons.
Al Sukkari was the prime defendant in the 2008 killing of Suzan Tamim in Dubai. In 2009, an Egyptian criminal court sentenced Al Sukkari to death.
After a retrial, another court reduced the sentence in 2010 to life in prison. In 2020, Al Sukkari was among 1,357 prisoners who received presidential pardons.
Hesham Talaat Mustafa, a business mogul, charged with inciting the killing of Tamim, was handed down 15 years in prison.
Mustafa, an ex-lawmaker, was released from prison in 2017 under a presidential pardon.
He had reportedly fallen in love with Tamim who jilted him after allegedly swindling him out of a fortune.
The murder case and its hearings had generated massive attention and media hype in the Arab world at the time.
