The of Court of
Cassation in the Cairo has decided to reopen the case against Egyptian
businessman Hisham Talaat Mustafa, who is accused of killing Lebanese singer
Suzan Tameem, and accepted his appeal. The Court fixed 16 January as the new
date for the appeal, especially after it emerged that some of the items not
included in the trial are present with the public prosecutor.
The
defense for former police officer Mohsen Al Sukari and businessman Hisham Talaat
Mustafa, consisting of 8 lawyers, has demanded that the verdict made by the
Cairo Criminal Court be dropped.
The defense lawyer
for Hisham stated that he filed an appeal stating that the provided evidence
during the trial is not sufficient and is ambiguous and a group of experts
should have been brought to resolve the issue.
the
lawyer noted that the procedures for discharge letters and calls and preventing
Hisham from travel, was contrary to the provisions of the law on the grounds
that the accused was a member of the Shura Council at the time. In
relation to telephone conversations recorded for Hisham, the lawyer claimed
that the public prosecutor violated the provisions of the Constitution. It
is known that the public prosecutor cannot act as an investigating judge and he
does not have the authority to do so.
The
defense claimed that the ruling was wrong in accusing Hisham of making the
necessary provisions to obtain entry visas to Britain and the United Arab
Emirates "to keep track of Suzanne Tamim." The
verdict was not based on liable evidence for such accusations and was merely
based on suspicion.
He added that there
was new evidence during the second trial, which is a documented dropping of
charges by the family of the victim (Suzan Tamim) accusing former Hisham of
being behind the murder. Suzan’s
family dropped all charges after they realized they made their accusations
based on anger and sorrow, then realized that they had accused the wrong person
and Hisham is innocent of all accusations.
The
defense asserted that the dropping of charges of Suzan’s family is an immediate
waiver according to the provisions of Islamic Shariah, which is the main source
of legislation in Egypt. It was
added that under the constitutional text in the UAE, which is where Suzan was
murdered, once charges are dropped by the family of the victim, the jail
sentence of the accused cannot exceed a three year period or be less than one
year. According to Egyptian law, if a crime is committed by an Egyptian outside
of Egypt, then the accused must be tried according to the country he committed
the crime in.
