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Topics: World News, Film and TV, Crime
Poppy Bilderbeck
A man's execution may be broadcast on live television if an Egyptian court gets its request granted by the government.
Mohamed Adel was sentenced to death after he was found guilty of the 'premeditated murder' of his classmate, 21-year-old Naira Ashraf.
The murder is said to have taken place as Ashraf was leaving university last month after the student rejected Adel's romantic advances, with it having been reported Adel had even proposed.
On Wednesday, 6 July, Adel was sentenced to death by hanging by Mansoura Criminal Court. However, the court has since written to parliament to request Adel's execution be broadcast on live television.
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Mansoura Criminal Court argue that if Adel's execution is broadcast on live TV it could help fend off any similar crimes from occurring in the future.
During the sentence hearing, the court discovered that Adel had been sending death threats to Ashraf's phone and stalking her, according to the female student's family and friends.
The murder was also caught on camera by an onlooker; the footage - which went viral - showed Adel brutally stabbing Ashraf to death.
A similar crime took place just days later at a university in Jordan, with Egypt having seen a rise in violence against women being recorded.
Adel pleaded guilty to his fellow student's murder and the verdict of a death sentence was approved by the country's Grand Mufti, Shawki Ibrahim Abdel-Karim Allam.
However, according to Adel's lawyer, Farid El-Deeb - who defended the late former president Hosni Mubarak - the 21-year-old is planning on appealing his sentence.
"We still have 60 days to challenge death sentence against Adel," the lawyer said, quoted in local reports.
Egypt's authorities have faced criticism over the last year, accused by Amnesty International of not properly investigating violence against women.
Such crimes have also been seen to have not been punished harshly enough by the courts.
Despite this, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, in the list of countries with the 'most confirmed executions in 2020', Egypt came in within the top three, with over 107 executions confirmed.
It ranked in the same third place position in the list of 'countries with the most death sentences in 2020' with a number of over 264.
The last time an execution was broadcast live on television in Egypt was in 1998.
The execution showed the hanging of three men who were found guilty of murdering a woman and her two children.
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