DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—She was an award-winning pop star who was hailed for her beauty in her native country of Lebanon. Tragically on the morning of July 28, 2008, she was found slain in her Dubai hotel room. She died from knife wounds.
The murder of Suzanne Tamim, and the subsequent trial of an Egyptian businessman found guilty of ordering her execution, has dominated headlines in the Arab world. The case was monitored closely by thousands in Cairo, who saw it as a litmus test of whether or not the country’s elite were beyond the reach of the law.
On Monday, Hisham Talaat Moustafa—an Egyptian tycoon and influential member of the country’s ruling political party—was found guilty of her murder and sentenced to 15 years in prison. This was the second time the gavel had come down against Moustafa, who was sentenced to death for this murder in a trial earlier last year, but the conviction was quashed on a technicality.
“I personally expected Moustafa to get away with whatever he did,” said Saied Labib, a political analyst, in comments to the L.A. Times. “The man is too powerful to receive a death penalty, and to be honest, I'm surprised he was sentenced to 15 years in jail today. … But it all remains to be seen until after the final appeal, because maybe he will eventually get away with it.”
The gruesome story was like a plot line from a novel. Moustafa, a married billionaire, had an affair with Tamim, but the singer broke off the relationship. Spurned, Moustafa paid a retired police officer $2 million to follow Tamim first to London, and then to Dubai, where she was killed.
The hitman, Mohsen al-Sukkari, was given a 25-year jail term on Monday. However, observers expressed surprise that the judge passed down the verdict without hearing the defense’s closing statements or from all of the witnesses. A lawyer for Moustafa, Bahaa Abu Shakka, said that the move violated due process.
“I was surprised with the swift verdict, which violates the criminal court's procedures,” the lawyer said. “The judge did not even hear the defendant's lawyers or listen to their argument.”
Soon after the retrial began, Tamim’s father publically dropped a civil case against Moustafa and implied that he no longer believed that the billionaire was behind his daughter’s death.
In addition, he said that he “didn’t take a penny” from Moustafa—a real estate tycoon behind several hotels in the popular Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik.
Moustafa has been dubbed ‘Egypt’s OJ Simpson’ by a regional broadcaster.
The Arabic-language daily Al-Destour has joined a chorus of skepticism in the local press over the viability of the jail sentence. “Hisham Talaat will be out of jail soon, either by presidential pardon or for health reasons,” the paper wrote.
