Cairo: An Egyptian court on Monday ordered the retrial of Hesham Talaat Mustafa, a business mogul, earlier sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of inciting the killing of a Lebanese singer in Dubai.
The Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest judicial authority, also ordered the retrial of Mohsin Al Sukkari, the prime defendant in the same case. Al Sukkari had been previously sentenced to 25 years in jail. Their retrial at an appeals court is scheduled to start on February 6. Upon hearing the retrial pronouncement wrapping up a five-minute session, relatives of both defendants went into raptures and chanted: "Long live justice. God is the greatest."
In May 2009, a criminal court sentenced Mustafa and Al Sukkari to death over killing of the Lebanese pop singer Suzan Tamim. The sentencing was commuted in September 2010.
The case, dubbed in the local press as the case of love and blood, has generated attention across the Arab world since it first came to light in 2008.
Mustafa is one of Egypt's top real estate developers, a former member of parliament and a leading politician in former president Hosni Mubarak's now-disbanded party. He had reportedly fallen for Suzan who jilted him after allegedly swindling him out of a fortune.
