A student in Mansoura, Egypt, who murdered his classmate after she refused his marriage proposal should be executed on live TV, a judge has said.
On June 20, Mohamed Adel, a third-year Arts student of Mansoura University, stabbed and killed 21-year-old Nayera Ashraf, near the front gate of the Faculty of Arts building, while she was on her way to the bus stop, heading back home to al-Mahalla.
Ashraf was stabbed several times, including on her neck and chest, according to a preliminary analysis.
Surveillance footage showed how Adel slashed Ashraf's neck with a knife before he was taken into custody by security personnel and passers-by.
Ashraf was rushed to the hospital in critical condition but she succumbed to her injuries before arriving at the facility, reports said.
The gruesome murder of the young student sent shockwaves across the country last month.
It was reported that Adel had expressed his desire to marry the victim, however, his love turned into revenge when she promptly refused his advances.
Testimonies of Ashraf's friends and colleagues suggested that Adel had been stalking and threatening her after she rejected his marriage proposal.
The prosecution also stated that the victim's family had previously filed several complaints at local police stations against the accused. The victim's cell phone records and text messages included death threats from Adel, prosecutors told the court.
"As long as we do not take the complaints of young women seriously, and as long as we say that those fighting for women’s rights are ‘emboldening girls and causing trouble," this will be the result," Nehad Abo el-Komsan, a lawyer and rights advocate, said on Instagram.
On Wednesday, July 6, the Court sentenced Adel to death by hanging.
Mansoura Courthouse is now planning to broadcast his execution live on TV to caution similar crimes from happening in the future.
"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," the court wrote in its letter to Parliament.
Lawyers have 60 days to review the ruling issued against Adel.
"We still have 60 days to challenge the death sentence against Adel," the defendant's lawyer Farid El-Deeb said.
The last time a capital punishment was broadcasted on public TV was in 1998, when state television aired the execution of three men who were found guilty of murdering a woman and her two children at their home in the capital city, Cairo.
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