Egyptian court upholds 15-year prison term for business tycoon

Feb 7, 2012, 12:44 GMT

Cairo - A Cairo court upheld a 15-year prison sentence for an Egyptian real estate tycoon who was charged with the murder of a Lebanese singer, the state-run Al Ahram daily reported Tuesday.

Hisham Talaat Mustafa, a former member of parliament under the regime of president Hosny Mubarak, was found guilty in 2009 of paying a former state security officer, Mohsen al-Sokari, to kill the singer, Suzanne Tamim, and was sentenced to death by hanging.

That verdict was appealed and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2010.

Monday's verdict by the Cairo Court of Cassation, the highest judicial authority in the country, ends Mustafa's three-year trial.

The court also endorsed the 25-year jail term for al-Sokari.

Tamim was found with her throat slit in her luxury Dubai apartment in July 2008.

Mustafa was accused of paying al-Sokari an equivalent of 2 million dollars to kill his alleged former mistress Tamim.

After Mubarak's ouster from power in February 2011, several lawsuits were filed against members of his cabinet and the now-disbanded National Democratic party, which Mustafa was a member of.