Accused entered guilty plea over premeditated killing of Nayera Ashraf, who rejected his advances Fast-tracked trial, judgment deters public from committing gruesome murders, lawyer tells Arab News BEIRUT: An Egyptian man will be executed by hanging after a court convicted him of the premeditated killing of his female colleague by slitting her neck outside their college after she rejected his advances. Egypt’s Al-Mansoura Criminal Court on Wednesday found defendant Mohamed Adel guilty of using a knife to kill Nayera Ashraf outside the campus of Al-Mansoura University last month. The June 20 murder triggered widespread outrage among Egyptians and in the Arab world. It took place in Mansoura, 130 kilometers north of Cairo. Reading out the judgment sheet during a public hearing, the presiding judge said: “The court heard the opinion of the republic’s grand mufti, who concluded that a death sentence is obligatory in the crimes of killing with a knife, as per the Shariah. “The court has unanimously agreed to sentence Mohamed Adel to death, confiscate the murder weapon and refer the civil lawsuit to the pertinent court.” Adel entered a guilty plea in court. Speaking to Arab News, Egyptian lawyer Hani Hammouda Hagag said that the “rapid trial and swift judgment in such a gruesome murder that awed the public opinion acts as a stern deterrent.” The legal procedures were fast-tracked due to the gravity of the crime, the modus operandi and the location of the murder outside a college campus, said the lawyer. “The speed of arresting, investigating, trying and sentencing the accused would definitely deter anyone from the public to think of or commit a similarly gruesome murder,” said Hagag, who added that “such crimes worry and terrify the community.” As per the Egyptian penal code, the primary verdict is subject to automatic appeal, said the lawyer. During the last week of June, a video went viral appearing to show the victim being stabbed by the accused outside the university. The murder was followed a few days later by a similar incident in which Jordanian medicine student Iman Irshaid was shot dead on a university campus in Amman. Social media users immediately drew comparisons between the two murders, decrying cases of femicide in the Arab world. As published earlier by Arab News, Ashraf had previously reported the perpetrator to the police, fearing that he would attack her. “He stabbed her several times,” said the prosecution, which found “messages threatening to cut her throat” on Ashraf’s phone.