9 - 15 August 2001
Issue No.546
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 9 - 15 August 2001 Issue No.546 |
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Worse than death?
Following a seven-hour session, the curtain fell on the Arkadia Mall trial. Shaden Shehab reports
"The court sentences Omar El-Hawari to life imprisonment with hard labour for the murder of Mahmoud Rawhi...," announced Criminal Court presiding judge Ezzat El-Ashmawi around 11pm, following a seven-hour marathon session, on Monday.
Rawhi 
El-Hawari
"It is unfair...unfair....unfair," screamed El-Hawari hysterically as he shook the cage-like iron dock. Security men ran to the dock and escorted him to prison.
Under Egyptian law, "life" means 25 years behind bars.
"Long live justice," shouted Rawhi's family and relatives outside the courtroom. Family and relatives of both Rawhi and El- Hawari were not allowed inside the courtroom during the last two sessions of hearings. Reporters were permitted to attend the sessions, but photographers were not. The Abbasiya courtroom and its entrance were practically occupied by security men.
After a three-month trial, 29-year-old businessman Omar El-Hawari was found guilty of murdering, with a butterfly knife, 37-year-old Mahmoud Rawhi, board chairman of Hertz Egypt, at the Pomodoro restaurant at the Arkadia Mall on 12 April.
Judge El-Ashmawi said that the court found the defendant guilty of murder -- but not premeditated murder -- because El-Hawari stabbed Rawhi nine times until he was certain of his death.
Monday's round of hearings started at 4pm, with the defence making a six-hour presentation -- to no avail. The court adjourned briefly without anybody expecting a sentence to be delivered that day. Once hearings resumed, El-Ashmawi handed down his bombshell ruling.
Since the beginning of hearings on 6 May, the mood dominating the trial was one of suspense. The proceedings attracted considerable attention from the public and many anxiously waited for the denouement, like in a detective movie.
After 12 sessions of hearings, the initial Criminal Court trial at Bab Al-Khalq came to a halt because El-Hawari's team of lawyers contested the court's jurisdiction and accused the three-judge panel of bias. Although the Cairo Court of Appeals turned down the defence's request, presiding judge Galal Ibrahim excused himself from conducting the hearings "because the defendant does not feel that the trial is fair."
A re-trial opened on 23 June at the Abbasiya court complex, with 21 witnesses coming to the stand.
Some witnesses testified that El-Hawari approached Rawhi and hit him with a piece of broken glass on the head and then stabbed him repeatedly until he was soaked with blood. El-Hawari attempted to escape but Rawhi's executive secretary, Mustafa Naguib, stopped him and they fought and both were injured.
Other witnesses testified that it was Rawhi who delivered the first blow, punching El-Hawari in the face. Naguib then attempted to stab El-Hawari, but he stabbed Rawhi by mistake. The witnesses also said that Rawhi's bodyguards continued to hit El-Hawari until he lost consciousness.
One of the defence witnesses, Saba Mahmoud Ouda, who is in Dubai, changed her testimony through her lawyer. She said that she was not at Pomodoro the night of the murder and that her first testimony was dictated to her by El-Hawari's brother and fiancée.
The chief forensic expert, Fakhri Mohamed Saleh, said that Rawhi suffered nine wounds. Three were on his face and one of them was deep. He said that this last injury was caused by a weapon with a sharp edge like a knife. The other two facial wounds were caused by broken glass. Rawhi had five wounds on his upper body and one to his leg, all of which were caused by a sharp-edged weapon. Saleh also examined El- Hawari in the court's bathroom and testified that his wounds were superficial and would not have caused him to lose consciousness.
The prosecutor and the civil claimants had called for El- Hawari to be sentenced to death.
"The ruling was met by mixed reactions in our family," one of Rawhi's relatives told Al-Ahram Weekly. "Some were saddened that El-Hawari did not get a death sentence because, since he killed someone, he should be similarly killed. But others are convinced that 25 years in prison is a sentence worse than death. Anyway, nothing will bring him [Rawhi] back. We only wanted justice."
Maher El-Derbi, one of El-Hawari's lawyers, said that they will appeal the ruling before a higher court.
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