The mother of the Egyptian woman who was killed in front of her university in Mansourah, Egypt, told Al Arabiya in an interview that the killer held a “grudge” against her daughter and had been harassing her for two years.
Nayiera Ashraf, 21, had her throat slit by a man, identified as Mohammed Adel, whose marriage proposal she allegedly turned down, according to local media reports.
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Ashraf’s mother added that the man’s confessions to the authorities were lies and that he had threatened her daughter for rejecting his advances, saying there was a “big price” to pay for her rejection.
“He held a grudge against her because she refused to be in a relationship with him. It’s as simple as that. This is not love. If you love someone, you wouldn’t do this to them. He’s possessive and selfish,” the mother said.
“Everything he said in court was lies.”
Adel’s trial began on Sunday at the Mansourah Criminal Court. He was accused of “premeditated murder,” after confessing to intentionally killing the victim, an AFP correspondent said on Sunday.
The victim previously reported the alleged perpetrator to the authorities, fearing that he would attack her, her father and other witnesses told AFP.
The maximum penalty for murder is death in Egypt, which carried out the third highest number of executions in the world in 2021, according to Amnesty International.
The family’s lawyer told Al Arabiya that he expected a verdict against the killer to be issued by the end of the week.
Adel, also a student at the university, told the court that Ashraf threatened to accuse him of harming her if he asked her to pay back all the money he had spent on her during their alleged relationship. He also said that he had reached out to her again in an attempt to resolve the matter and settle their differences, but she rejected him and asked him to stay away from her, Al Arabiya reported.
The alleged murderer confessed that he spent money on Ashraf during their relationship to help her with monetary issues her family had been experiencing, and that her parents were aware of the money that she was taking from him.
“But when I went to her house, I discovered that her family did not know anything about this,” he said. “I was spending on her, not leaving her in need, but she called me and threatened to expose me and use somebody to assault me.”
“Nayiera threatened me a lot in an hour-long phone call, and my family rejected our story, and I was shocked and I decided to respond to the insults through a new email after she blocked me everywhere.”
The next hearing is set to take place on Tuesday, AFP reported.
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