The Egyptian prosecution said the two men accused of robbery that led to the death of a woman in Cairo’s Maadi suburb are charged with deliberate murder.
The defendants were found in possession of a firearm and a cold weapon, the prosecution added.
On Tuesday night, a 24-year-old woman was found dead in a Maadi street after being robbed.
An eyewitness told the prosecution the two men in a microbus snatched her backpack and clung to it while the car was moving, causing the woman to lose balance and hit her head against a nearby parked car. The ambulance reached the scene half an hour after the incident, but the woman was dead.
The prosecution, in a statement on Saturday, ordered the detention of the two main defendants in the case for four days pending investigation, along with another suspect, the vehicle owner, over accusation of assisting the other defendants.
Police investigations revealed that the two men have forcibly stolen women’s bags before and that the third defendant lends the vehicle to people to commit these crimes.
The third defendant denied the accusations, while the other defendants claimed the vehicle owner did not know about the incident.
According to the prosecution, the defendants admitted committing the crime after coordinating with each other to rob a woman in Maadi district, the prosecution said. They smudged the car plates and drove in Maadi streets until they found the young victim.
The defendants confessed they took the bag after the victim smashed her head then took the money and some of the victim’s cosmetics before throwing the bag away, according to the prosecution.
The prosecution said it also established that the seized vehicle matched the description of eyewitnesses and the defendants. It referenced a video on social media showing the vehicle used in the robbery and the victim wearing the same clothes and carrying the same bag before the incident.
It referred the defendants to the forensic department to test for drugs and the Ministry of Interior’s General Administration for Criminal Evidence is conducting a biometric analysis using footage from the incident.
Short link: