Cairo: An Egyptian court had sentenced a man to death on charges of slaughtering another on the street and parading his head before he was overpowered in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, local media reported.
The murder happened last month when the convict beheaded the victim with a cleaver and attempted to kill two others in what the Egyptian media dubbed as the case of “Ismailia mass murderer”.
The city’s criminal court Thursday passed an initial death against the defendant Abdulrahman Nazmi, nicknamed Dabur, Arabic for wasp.
The court said it will send the ruling to the country’s mufti to approve, a routine procedure in cases involving death sentencing. The court set January 5 as the date for pronouncing a final verdict.
The defendant’s lawyer said he had committed the crime under the influence of drugs.
The defendant’s mother defended her son at the court and argued he was well-mannered until he started taking drugs.
He was seen in images carried by local media while kissing his mother’s hand in a gesture of respect in the courtroom.
Prosecutors had charged Dabur with premeditated murder, an attempt to kill two others and illegal use of a cleaver.
