Prayer leader, 62, rapes, kills minor

A 62-year old Egyptian, identified as Mustapha MA, kidnapped a seven-year old girl, raped her, stole her gold earring, killed her and dumped her body in garbage, the ‘Al Youm Al Sabea’a’ newspaper has reported.

Mustapha is the owner of a restaurant and is known as ‘Sheikh Mustafa’ as he used to lead people in prayers.

The public prosecutor in Al Zagazig has ordered the accused be held in police custody for four days pending investigations.

The defendant said he is separated from his wife of 12 years without divorce and lived alone on the roof of his family’s five-storey building.

The accused said on the day of the crime he saw the child, identified as Basmala.

“I lured her to my restaurant, closed the door, assaulted her sexually and stole her ear ring. Then I killed her and to get rid of her body I dumped it in the nearby garbage.

The accused disclosed that he had hanged the child using her own trousers.

Before identifying the killer, the police interrogated all suspects with criminal records.

Police monitored the place where the body of the child was found. It observed that an old man was sneaking about, trying to dump a bundle of clothes in his hand.

The police arrested the man and searched the trash to find some clothes of the victim.

Police arrested the man and raided the restaurant where a packet of washing powder, which the mother had sent her daughter to fetch from a grocery, was found.

Hundreds of residents of the area gathered to protest in front of the accused’s restaurant, which is 10 metres from the home of the girl,  but police controlled the situation.

Meanwhile, relatives of another girl who disappeared three years ago in similar circumstances, have not found her body yet. They have asked the police to search in the restaurant of the killer for their child, suspecting that the accused could be behind her disappearance too.

Basmala’s mother lives with her husband and three children – Ahmed, 10, Basmala, 7, and Salma, 3.

She added that on the day of the incident at 11 am “I asked my daughter to buy washing powder from the grocery on the street where we live.“I was waiting for my daughter to bring the powder. Half an hour passed and she didn’t come and I got scared.

“I ran to the shop where the grocer told me that he gave her the washing powder and that she had gone back to the house.

“Because of the deteriorating security situation since the revolution and the spread of kidnappings, I thought my daughter had been kidnapped. We started to search with the help of neighbours and the accused was the first one to offer help. After we found the body, he also attended the funeral,” the mother said.

Witnesses confirmed that the accused had led Al Fajr prayers on the day of the crime.

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