Egypt welcomes sentence for murder of "martyr of the veil"

Nov 11, 2009, 21:04 GMT

Cairo - Egypt on Wednesday welcomed a Dresden court's decision to sentence a man to life in prison for murdering an Egyptian woman, praising it as serving justice.

'The application of the most severe criminal penalty in German law serves justice and should be a deterrent to those motivated by hate and malice,' Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said in a statement.

'Egyptian-German relations are based on good cooperation in various areas,' he said. 'They are too strong to be affected by a crime of this sort.'

Aleksandr Wiens, a German of Russian origin, was sentenced to life imprisonment without the chance of early parole, for stabbing to death Marwa el-Shirbini during a court hearing in July.

El-Shirbini, who was pregnant with her second child, had brought charges against Wiens after he verbally abused her at a playground, apparently because she was wearing a Muslim headscarf.

Her murder outraged many in the Arab world's most populous country. More than 1,000 people attended El-Shirbini's funeral in her native Alexandria.

Wiens' trial was front-page news in Egypt, where newspapers dubbed her as 'the martyr of the veil.'

Zaki appealed to Arab and international media to report the case responsibly, 'so as not to affect the feelings and conditions of the millions of Arabs and Muslims who live in Western countries.'

On the streets of Cairo, where the law provides for the death penalty, reaction to Wednesday's verdict was mixed.

'This was an utterly heinous crime. Life in prison is too little,' said Hanan Mohammed Mostafa, a 54-year old nurse. 'He should have been executed. He took an innocent woman's life. Marwa's only 'crime' was being a Muslim.'

Osama Tharwat, a 23-year old cook, agreed. 'This was a disgraceful crime. He should have been executed, especially considering that he took her unborn baby's life as well.'

But Ahmed Said, 20, took a softer view. 'This was the correct verdict. The punishment fits the crime, 100 per cent,' he said.