An Egyptian court is planning to broadcast the live hanging of a killer who stabbed a student to death when she turned down his marriage proposal.
Mohamed Adel, 21, was found guilty of murdering his Mansoura University classmate Naira Ashraf when she turned him down, with the court sentencing him to death on July 6.
The court has now called for his execution to be broadcast live to deter similar crimes from happening in the future.
In its letter to Parliament, the court wrote: ‘The broadcast, even if only part of the start of proceedings, could achieve the goal of deterrence, which was not achieved by broadcasting the sentencing itself.’
Chilling footage shows Adel attacking Ashraf outside Mansoura University near the Nile Delta on June 20.
According to local media, she was just about to sit her final exams.
Footage shows Adel attacking Ashraf outside Mansoura University near the Nile Delta on June 20.
Ashraf died on the spot as angry passersby seized Adel while he was holding the knife and standing over her body, the video shows.
Local media said that she was stabbed several times, including on her neck and chest.
The court heard that the knifeman had stalked the student and resolved to kill her after she rejected his marriage proposal.
Mansoura Courthouse preliminarily settled on the death penalty on June 28, confirming the sentence a week later.
An appeal stalled the verdict, which was made public on July 24. Now, the court has requested that the legislature change the statute governing capital punishment so that the execution might be aired live.
‘We still have 60 days to challenge the death sentence against Adel,’ said the defendant’s lawyer Farid El-Deeb.
El-Deeb, who worked as the lead defense lawyer for late ex-president Hosni Mubarak, is well-known in Egypt.
The last time a capital punishment was in 1998, when state television broadcast the execution of three men who had killed a woman and her two children at their home in Cairo.
In Egypt, the method of execution for civilian convictions is hanging.
