Justice prevails in Arab world: Grand Mufti upholds death penalty for murder of Lebanese pop star

Jeffrey Fleishman and Noha El-Hennawy, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
4:13 AM PDT, May 21, 2009

Reporting from Cairo -- A billionaire developer and former member of the Egyptian Parliament was sentenced to death Thursday for ordering the murder of his former girlfriend, a troubled Lebanese pop singer whose body was found in her high-rise apartment in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai.

The verdict against Hisham Talaat Mustafa, once a member of the ruling National Democratic Party, was the latest twist in a drama that has offered a rare peek into the closely guarded realm of Egypt's politicians and businessmen. Mustafa was found guilty of paying $2 million to a former policeman in 2008 to kill Suzanne Tamim, a diva whose professional slide led her into an affair with one of the country's richest men.

Appearing in court wearing prison-issued white shirt and pants, Mustafa was granted an immediate review of the sentence by Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa. A religious investigation is common in Egypt for death penalty cases, but few expected that a tycoon who built luxury hotels and had ties to President Hosni Mubarak's family would be facing the gallows.

"I am definitely sad because today's decision shows that the court is moving in a particular direction," said Mustafa's lawyer, Farid El-Deeb. He added that his client, who sat in a defendant's cage during Thursday brief hearing, was also entitled to an appeal before Egypt's highest court.

The verdict may be a sign to businessmen "that nobody is above the law," said Hassan Nafae, a writer and political commentator. "It may deter some arrogant businessmen who thought there were no political or legal constraints on their ambitions as well as their sexual desires."

The case has fascinated the media across the Middle East. Egypt's prosecutor general, Abdel-Maguid Mahmoud, had newspapers confiscated from kiosks and ordered a ban on publishing stories as the police investigation pointed toward Mustafa, who was a member of the NDP Policy Secretariat headed by Mubarak's son, Gamal. But the ruling party's ability to protect one of its own collided with the insistence of Dubai authorities that Mustafa be charged with murder.

Mustafa hired hotel security guard and former policemen Mohsen Sukkari to kill Tamim, 31, after the singer broke off their relationship when she became involved with an Iraqi kick-boxing champion. Mustafa, a married man with graying hair and a dark mustache, had dated Tamim for three years; the couple met in hotels and apartments in London, Dubai and Cairo.

Police say Sukkari, who was also sentenced to death, entered Tamim's flat in Dubai on July 28, 2008, by posing as a representative of the building's owners. He slit her throat and fled, leaving his bloody clothes behind and his picture on a surveillance camera. He was quickly arrested and implicated Mustafa, whose conversations with Sukkari about the murder were also caught on state security eavesdropping tapes.

Mustafa was head of the Talaat Mustafa Group, which built hotels and businesses throughout the Middle East, including at the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. Tamim rose to prominence after winning a TV talent show in Lebanon in 1996, but legal battles with her estranged second husband, a music producer, hurt her career.