Cairo: The first session of the trial of an Egyptian man who confessed to killing a student in front of Mansoura University in Dakahlia Governorate after she refused to marry him, began on Sunday.
On June 20, a video went viral where the accused Muhammad Adel can be seen slitting the throat of 21-year-old Nayera Ashraf in front of hundreds of students and passers-by.
The Fourth Circuit of Mansoura Criminal Court issued a decision to permanently ban publication in the rest of the case’s sessions in the audio-visual media and on all websites, except for the sentencing session.
The next hearing is set for Tuesday, the defendant’s lawyer, Ahmed Hamad, told AFP.
Social networking sites in Egypt on Sunday were abuzz with scenes broadcasting the trial live in front of everyone, and the confessions of the accused, Mohamed Adel, provoked some of them.
The trial witnessed a gathering of the victim’s family members, who announced their refusal to receive condolences until his retribution.
Dozens of Naira’s relatives and friends raised her pictures in front of the court headquarters, amid calls for the death penalty to be applied to the accused. Others gathered at the crime scene in front of the gate Mansoura University, carrying roses in solidarity with the victim.
The victim’s mother said, in statements to Egyptian media while attending the trial, “Nayera died as a martyr, and the judge will consider her his daughter, and he will judge justice.”
The case was further spread by the occurrence of a similar crime in Jordan against a student named Iman Irsheed who was killed by a young man, which prompted many Jordanians and Egyptians to demand the death penalty for the accused in both countries.
According to the United Nations and the Egyptian Statistics Authority in 2015, about 8 million women were subjected to violence in Egypt by their husbands, relatives, or the environment around them in public places.
