EGYPT: MAN EXECUTED ONE YEAR AFTER KILLING OF NAYERA ASHRAF

June 15, 2023:

Egypt on June 14, 2023 executed the killer of university student Naiyera Ashraf, who was murdered in a heinous crime last year in an incident that rocked the country and the region.
Mohamed Adel, who had pleaded guilty at the time for the murder of the young woman, was executed by the authorities of the Gamasa prison. 
The sentence took place after appeals by the defendant’s lawyers in the case were rejected.
Ashraf, 21 at the time of her death, was killed by Adel at the entrance of her university in Egypt after she reportedly rejected his marriage proposal.
Adel was sentenced in a highly publicized two-day trial in June last year, after a video went viral appearing to show Ashraf being stabbed outside her university in Mansoura, 150 kilometres (95 miles) north of Cairo.
She had previously reported her fears of attack to the authorities, and prosecutors had said messages from the accused “threatening to cut her throat” were found on her phone.
After the incident, Egypt’s Mansoura Criminal Court confirmed Adel’s death sentence and Egyptian authorities said at the time that Adel’s crime was intentional and it was said to be a premediated murder.
Prosecutors presented the testimony of 15 witnesses, including students, university security personnel, and workers in the shops surrounding the incident, all of whom confirmed seeing the accused when the incident was committed.
Egypt’s Court of Cassation upheld the verdict on February 9, 2023.
A series of high-profile femicides in Egypt last year triggered widespread anger and fears of copycat crimes.
Some social media users called for the perpetrators to be sentenced to death, while others said men must “learn to take no for an answer.”
Murder is a capital offence in Egypt, which carried out the world's fourth highest number of executions last year, according to Amnesty International.