In the second trial session on Tuesday, the Mansoura Criminal Court, north of Cairo, ruled to refer the papers of the defendant in the murder of Naira Ashraf, a Mansoura University student, who was killed by her classmate in front of the university's college gate just days ago, to the Grand Mufti for the legal opinion on his execution for premeditated murder.
The court had previously decided in the first session to impose a complete media ban regarding the case across all audio-visual media and newspapers and magazines. The trial began on Sunday for the young man who admitted to killing his classmate in front of her university in the Nile Delta, north of Cairo, after she rejected his romantic advances, according to reports from AFP correspondents.
The Egyptian Public Prosecution referred the accused to the criminal court for allegedly "intentionally killing the victim, Naira Ashraf, with premeditation by surprising her with a knife, stabbing her multiple times, and deliberately trying to take her life."
The third-year student of the Faculty of Arts at Mansoura University, Mohamed Adel, confessed during the first court session that he killed his classmate on June 20 of this month, expressing remorse for his actions. However, he mentioned that he wanted to take revenge on her, but not in this manner, stating that "she hurt me."
The defendant claimed he was in a relationship with the victim, and she blocked him on social media accounts after they had agreed on an engagement, threatening him to stop following her, accusing her mother of being "the reason for everything that happened," as reported by the newspapers "Al-Masry Al-Youm" and "Youm7."
Ashraf Abdel Qader, the father of the victim known in the media as the "Mansoura Student," previously expressed his hope to hear about the court's decision to refer the defendant's papers to the Grand Mufti (the issuance of a death sentence), noting that he is "living a nightmare," according to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Shorouk.
The crime sparked widespread reactions in Egypt due to its brutality and the manner in which it occurred.
