Egyptian widower to skip Dresden anniversary of stabbing

Jun 28, 2010, 16:13 GMT

Dresden, Germany - An Egyptian academic who lost his wife in a horrific courtroom stabbing in Germany is to skip this week's memorial ceremonies on the first anniverary, according to associates on Monday.

The murder of Marwa el-Shirbini, 31, a pregnant Egyptian pharmacist, by a self-described racist on July 1, 2009, shocked Egyptians and Germans.

Her widower, Elwy Ali Okaz, has moved to Britain to continue his post-graduate research, according to former associates at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, where he and his wife had lived since 2004.

Neither Okaz, 32, nor their son Mustafa, born in Dresden in 2006, would be returning to Germany.

'He's doing fine,' said a former colleague in Dresden who keeps in touch with him.

Okaz also refused to return to Germany to receive a civic honour.

Officials will unveil a bronze plaque in silence this Thursday in a court corridor just outside the room where Aleksander Wiens, a Russian immigrant, repeatedly stabbed al-Shirbini after she had testified about the racist slurs with which he had insulted her.

Her courage in standing up to a man who called her a 'terrorist' and her proud wearing of an Islamic head-scarf despite disapproval among Europeans led some in her homeland to dub al-Shirbini the 'scarf martyr.'

Wiens is now serving life in prison for the worst degree of murder.

The inscription on the plaque will be in Arabic and German.

The mayor of Dresden, Helma Orosz, said, 'We can work with all our might to ensure something like this never recurs.'