Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 June 2000 Issue No. 485
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Under the cloak of 'the beast'

By Nasser Arrabyee

The trial of an apparent mass murderer in Yemen has outraged the Yemeni public, but it is not only the alleged crimes that have raised their ire.

Only one month ago, Mohamed Adam, a 52-year old Sudanese man who worked as a morgue assistant at the Faculty of Medicine at Sana'a University confessed to raping, killing and mutilating more than 16 women. At the beginning of his trial last week Adam recanted much of his confession, causing students to question the investigation and the conduct of the faculty administration.

Shocked by the brutality of the alleged crimes, more than 20,000 students, led by the Students General Union (SGU), demonstrated last week in Sana'a before submitting a letter to Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh demanding that Adam "be executed and put on display at the faculty of medicine."

Carrying placards that read, "Reform the dangerous situation in the university," the students also called for punishing the dean, vice dean, and all security guards at the college for "corruption, negligence, and incompetence."

The SGU, dominated by the Islamist opposition Islah Party, launched a lawsuit against the university administration at the same court where the killer is being tried. According to the union, Adam had been fired from the university for accepting money from four students in December 1999. Students claim that he had agreed to act as an intermediary and pass the money on to their professors as bribes to ensure they passed their exams. In spite of his dismissal he was allowed to return to work.

In a statement issued by the union, students warned that if they detected any "attempt to undermine the case or be lenient with anyone involved with the murderer," they would stage nationwide demonstrations.

In the meantime, the Islah Party called for an end to the coeducation system in the university, saying it is among the factors allowing "such brutal crimes" to be committed.

Prior to Adam's arrest, more than 60 female students had submitted complaints to the dean of the Faculty of Medicine claiming that they had been harassed by the morgue assistant but their concerns were disregarded. Students had also complained that Adam lived in the morgue -- both eating and sleeping there. Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly, one student said, "He was a drug addict and we often found him drunk. When we complained to the dean, he said no Yemeni will accept working in the morgue."

In response to pressure from students, who also met with the Yemeni Prime Minister Abdel Karim Al-Eriani, the dean and assistant dean of the Faculty of Medicine were suspended, while the head of security for the university was fired.

That the trial began immediately after the demonstrations was cited by some as due to the government's concern about the rising anger over the case among the general public. Further, the London-based Arabic language daily Al-Hayat has suggested that the resignation of Yemeni Minister of Interior Hussein Mohamed is imminent due to the handling of the murder investigation.

The main hero of the case so far seems to be Umm Zeinab, the mother of one of Adam's victims who refused to let the case of her missing daughter be dropped. The Iraqi Zeinab, 21-years of age, disappeared at the beginning of this year. According to Umm Zeinab, her daughter was one of the students who used Adam as an intermediary to pass bribes to faculty professors. After failing her exams Zeinab went to see Adam to get her money back. That was the last time Umm Zeinab saw her daughter alive. Approximately six months later Zeinab's mutilated body was discovered by police.

Meanwhile, "the beast of Sana'a," as Adam is called by the Yemeni press, also claims to have committed many crimes outside of Yemen. He confessed to raping and killing 11 women in Sudan and "a greater number" in Kuwait, Chad, and Central African Republic .

While Adam has been eager to confess, not everyone is convinced that he is the actual perpetrator of all the crimes he claims as his own. Some have even suggested that his conflicting confessions were calculated to deflect the attention of prosecutors from his involvement in a ring for trading in human organs. Speculation does not end there; others have suggested that the ring involves university officials.

Immediately after being arrested Adam gave police detailed accounts of the 16 murder he claimed to have committed. He furnished them with dates, names of victims and lurid accounts of the rapes, murders, mutilation and disposal of the bodies in the university's sewage system.

Later, however, Adam recanted, saying instead that he only killed two female students whose bodies were actually found in the morgue's sewage system. One of these women was Yemeni student Hosn Attiya, 23, the other was Zeinab Aziz.

One of the women Adam claimed to have killed, a Nada Yassin, surprised everyone when she appeared. "You are a liar, you are a liar," Yassin shouted at Adam who earlier described in horrific detail how he had raped, killed and mutilated her.

Sana'a chief prosecutor Ahmed Haiel Osman revealed on Saturday that four other girls who Adam claimed to have killed, were proved to be alive and with their families. These disclosures raised suspicions among the families of the two victims as well as the outraged public about the possibility that Adam was involved in the trading of human organs.

As Hamad Ayad, a student at Sana'a University suggested, "The Sudanese man couldn't have transformed the faculty morgue into a slaughterhouse for women without anybody noticing."

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