Reprieve for tycoon sentenced to hang over ex-lover's murder

AN EGYPTIAN court has ordered the retrial of a businessman sentenced to death for murdering his former lover, a Lebanese pop star, in a case that transfixed the Arab world.

Hisham Talaat Moustafa, 50, was convicted last May of paying retired police officer, Mohsen el-Sukkary $2 million (1.3m) to kill Suzanne Tamim, 30, while she was in Dubai in July 2008.

The Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest court of appeal, overturned his conviction yesterday, prompting cheers and clapping from the billionaire tycoon's supporters inside and outside the packed courtroom.

El-Sukkary, who had also been sentenced to hang, will be retried as well.

"The court has decided to accept … the appeal presented by the defendants on procedural and content basis," Adel Abdel Hamid, head of the 11-strong judges' panel, said. "There will be a retrial."

El-Sukkary's father jumped in relief. "Thank God we have a respectable judiciary," he said.

Lawyers had argued against the sentence on grounds of faulty procedures, starting from the arrest to details of the Dubai investigation. But experts say it is customary in cases involving death sentences to give the defendants a second chance.

A lower court will later decide when the retrial will take place. Lawyers say it could be as soon as two months from now.

The case captivated Egyptians as it involved a member of an elite often viewed as above the law.

Moustafa was a member of parliament's upper house, the Shura Council, and a member the ruling party's policies committee, which is chaired by president Hosni Mubarak's son Gomal.

The tycoon is also chairman of one of the country's main real estate companies, a family-run business that continues to flourish.

Tamim rose to stardom in the late 1990s, but hit troubled times, separating from her Lebanese husband-manager, who filed a series of lawsuits against her.

She met Moustafa in the summer of 2004 at a Red Sea resort, according to transcripts of his interrogation that were published in Egyptian newspapers. She had sought his help to divorce from her husband. El-Sukkary said in the transcripts that Moustafa was "always with Tamim", that he kept a hotel suite for her, and he took her around in his private jet.

Under questioning, Moustafa said he broke up with his former lover after his mother opposed their marriage plan. Moustafa, who is already married, comes from a religiously conservative Muslim family.

According to Dubai investigators, el-Sukkary stalked Tamim to her apartment in the upmarket Dubai Marina complex and entered using an ID of the management company from which she had recently bought the flat.

They said the killer's face had been caught on security cameras.

Tamim's throat had been slit, and blood-soaked clothes were found dumped outside the building. El-Sukkary was arrested the following month in Egypt. Dubai police travelled to Cairo to present their evidence against him, and officers then turned their attention to Moustafa, whose real estate empire includes luxury hotels and resorts.

Egypt declined to extradite Moustafa to the United Arab Emirates, insisting he be tried at home. That move was initially read by many Egyptians as opening the door for a slap on the wrist for Moustafa, because of his links to the ruling party.