Mansoura student killer pleads guilty, makes allegations against victim

CAIRO – 26 June 2022: Mohamed Adel, killer of student Nayera Ashraf, pleaded guilty Sunday before Mansoura Criminal Court, saying "I was fully sane when I committed the crime."

Nevertheless, his lawyer requested that he gets referred to the Forensic Medicine Authority, so it would carry out a mental check-up on his client.

Adel claimed that he was dating Nayera, and that he used to spend money on her. "She used to tell me she had disagreements with her parents. Yet, she said that they knew about our love story. However, when I visited their house, I figured out that they didn't know," the defendant told the judge.

The victim Nayera Ashraf

He added, "She and I agreed to get engaged. She said her parents knew. All that is recorded in our chats. But, after a while, it turned out that I was a stage in her life. She used me to achieve things, and when she did, she dumped me."

The defendant alleged Nayera's family of forcing him to sign checks when he was at their place by bringing in thugs. "Her father called me, asking to resolve the issue. I went to meet him, and it wasn't a shock. He told me 'you got fooled. Her mother is the reason. She encourages her to date guys that would help her attain her goals.'" 

As for the last remote contact between the victim and the culprit, Adel said, "Nayera threatened me a lot in a phone call that lasted for an hour. My family rejected our relationship. And, I was in a shock. I decided to insult her back through a new email I created, after she had blocked me on all social media."

As for the day of the murder, the defendant confessed, "I had an exam and I missed the bus. So I had to take the next one, which moves at 10:30 a.m. When I got on the bus, she was there. I carried a knife because I feared she would fulfill her threats of sending me thugs. I also wanted to kill her, if I had the chance."

"She was laughing at the bus, so I got really pissed. I told myself she deserved it. She and her friend would look at me and laugh. It drove me mad. She didn't know I had a knife," Adel admitted.

At the beginning of the trial session, the Public Prosecution's arraignment charged the defendant with manslaughter, saying that he had planned to murder Nayera on that exam day. That is why he took the same bus, hiding a knife in his clothes. Then, when they got off, he stabbed her several times in the back, and slit her throat.

Prosecutor General Hamada el Sawy referred on Wednesday the defendant accused of murdering Nayera Ashraf, a female student at Mansoura University, to the criminal court on charges of murder.

Prosecution investigations showed that the defendant, named Mohamed Adel, followed Nayera and stabbed her multiple times to death using a knife outside the university after refusing his marriage proposal several times.

In its statement, The Public Prosecution, confirmed its firm response to various forms of violent crime, especially those against women and youth.

The Public Prosecution also warned against compromising the evidence and the circumstances of the facts in which investigations are conducted or contacting their parties, whether in Nayera’s murder case incident or in others.

The statement noted that the prosecution has listened to several testimonials from Nayera’s friends, workers at the university and from workers on the bus, which the murderer used to follow Nayera on her way to the university every day.

The prosecution also found several threatening messages from the murderer to the victim’s mobile phone saying that he is going to kill her.

The victim’s friends and colleagues in their testimonials affirmed that the murderer used to follow Nayera, harass her and proposed more than once but she declined his request; accordingly, he intended to follow and murder her.