Egyptian tycoon who got diva murdered is freed

Cairo, June 24: An Egyptian real estate tycoon jailed for the murder of a Lebanese pop diva was freed on Saturday as part of a presidential pardon for hundreds of detainees, security officials said.

State television said President Abdel Fattah alSisi pardoned a total of 502 prisoners to mark Eid alFitr holiday at the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramzan.

Hisham Talaat Moustafa, who was sentenced to 15 years in jail in 2010 for the murder of Suzanne Tamim, was among those pardoned on health grounds, an interior ministry official said.

Moustafa was released from prison on Friday, he said. A police official at the Torah jail south of Cairo confirmed the tycoon had been freed.

Tamim, Moustafa’s lover, was murdered in July 2008 at her Dubai apartment by former policeman Mohsen al-Sukkari.

The court which sentenced Moustafa to jail accused him of having paid Sukkari $2 million to cut Tamim's throat.

Sukkari was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Tamim’s killing sparked an outcry in the region, particularly in Egypt where Moustafa was a respected figure and a businessman associate

of ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s son and heir apparent Gamal.

Moustafa was also a member of Mubarak’s now-dissolved National Democratic Party.

In May 2009, Moustafa was sentenced to jail but a year later an appeals court overturned the verdict on procedural grounds and ordered a retrial. In 2010 he was handed a 15-year prison sentence. State television said those pardoned by Sisi included people jailed in connection with “demonstrations” . It did not elaborate.

In July 2013, Egypt’s Army, then headed by Sisi, ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi who had succeeded Mubarak, and launched a crackdown on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.