EGYPT: MAN SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR MURDER

April 15, 2009: an Egyptian man was sentenced to death by a court of Giza, Egypt, which found him guilty of the murders of two girls in 2008.
The court asked the country's Mufti to authorise the death sentence for Mahmud Sayed Abdelhafiz Essawi, 22, convicted of killing a Moroccan singer's daughter and a friend in November, a judicial source said.
"The court has sent the paper to the Mufti to sign," the source told AFP, referring to Ali Gomaa, the government-appointed interpreter of Islamic law.
Executions in Egypt must be authorised by Gomaa. It is largely expected he will agree.
Police arrested Essawi, days after Heba el-Akkad, daughter of Morrocan singer Leila Ghofran, and her friend Nadine Khaled were found stabbed to death in Khaled's apartment in an affluent Cairo suburb.
Hafiz confessed to killing the two women when he tried to rob the apartment, according to police. (Sources: AFP, Ansa, 15/04/2009)