{"id":377,"date":"2009-06-09T12:20:34","date_gmt":"2009-06-09T12:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/06\/murderer-of-suzanne-tamim-sent.html"},"modified":"2009-06-09T12:20:34","modified_gmt":"2009-06-09T12:20:34","slug":"murderer-of-suzanne-tamim-sent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/06\/murderer-of-suzanne-tamim-sent.html","title":{"rendered":"murderer of Suzanne Tamim sentenced to death"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is good news<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Suzanne Tamim shot to fame in an “American Idol”-style TV show, a green-eyed Lebanese beauty whose pop songs about love’s agony mirrored her troubled life.<\/p>\n

Now, the man reported to be her secret lover _ a married, politically powerful Egyptian tycoon _ has been sentenced to hang for paying a former government security agent $2 million to slit her throat, a murder almost as clumsy as it was horrific.<\/p>\n

Billionaire Hisham Talaat Moustafa showed no emotion Thursday as he was convicted and sentenced for ordering the killing of Tamim _ the latest chapter in the sordid tale of sex, power, money and murder that was closely followed throughout the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Many had wondered if the 50-year-old real estate mogul tied to President Hosni Mubarak’s son, Gamal, and an influential member of the ruling party, would get away with murder in a region where the rich are often thought to be above the law.<\/p>\n

[…] As details of the crime hit the newsstands, the judge imposed a gag order and closed most of the 27 trial sessions to the public. Fueling the intrigue were Moustafa’s ties to Gamal Mubarak, who is often touted to succeed his father as president. Moustafa, a member of parliament’s upper house, the Shura Council, was also a member the ruling party’s policies committee, which the younger Mubarak chairs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The fact that Moustafa was sentenced despite being rich and powerful is a great sign. The actual murder-assassination plot was indeed as clumsy as it was brutal, indicating that Moustafa fully expected he would get away with this crime. It’s worth noting the role that the Arab media played in keeping justice blind to the accused’s wealth and power in this case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is good news: Suzanne Tamim shot to fame in an “American Idol”-style TV show, a green-eyed Lebanese beauty whose pop songs about love’s agony mirrored her troubled life. Now, the man reported to be her secret lover _ a married, politically powerful Egyptian tycoon _ has been sentenced to hang for paying a former…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[177,26,34],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-neverending-story","tag-justice","tag-politics","tag-women"],"yoast_head":"\nmurderer of Suzanne Tamim sentenced to death - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"murderer of Suzanne Tamim sentenced to death - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is good news: Suzanne Tamim shot to fame in an “American Idol”-style TV show, a green-eyed Lebanese beauty whose pop songs about love’s agony mirrored her troubled life. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}