In the early hours of 21st May, Thursday, an Egyptian tycoon and one of the premiere political figures of the country received a death sentence that was passed by a court in Cairo for the murder of Susan Tamim, a Lebanese singer.

At the end of the court proceedings, the billionaire Hisham Talaat Moustafa was found guilty of paying a sum of $2 million to an ex-policeman to carry out the murder of Susan Tamim. The court condemned both the perpetrator and the killer Muhsin Sukkari, the ex-policemen, to be hanged until death. Following the orders from the billionaire, Sukkari had brutally knifed Tamim to death, in her own apartment on July, 2008. She was stabbed repeatedly and her whole face was mutilated. Hearing the final verdict from the judge, Moustafa’s face took on a paler hue, his two daughters burst into tears and the his sister fainted on the spot.

Early in the trial, the indictment had accused one of the security guards of one of the hotel’s owned by Moustafa of the Susan murder. But as the police began to investigate the matter more thoroughly, new leads were found and evidences recovered that pointed towards Moustafa as the instigator of the murder of Tamim.

Tamim got the taste of fame for the first time in the year 1996, the year she appeared for a TV talent show in Lebanon. She reached her career high when she won the Gold Medal on the Studio al-Fann program, following which people began to appreciate the beauty of her voice more than her facial beauty.