Egypt asks grand mufti to ratify death sentence of serial killer who targeted women

The fate of a convicted serial killer will finally be decided on 12 September after a Cairo criminal court has referred his case file to the country’s grand mufti, Dr Nazir Ayyad, for final review.

On Saturday 24 August, an Egyptian judge found Karim Selim, 37, guilty of murdering three women after drugging and torturing them to death, crimes that have sent shockwaves across the Arab World's most populous country in recent months.

In Egypt, a criminal court has to seek the final approval of the grand mufti - tasked with issuing fatwas (religious edicts) as a legal formality in cases of death sentences. The ruling can still be appealed before a higher court, however.    

Selim was also convicted of performing unusual sexual acts with his victim's dead bodies as well as filming the process inside a soundproof room allocated for these purposes inside his home, located in the upscale Fifth Settlement district near Cairo. 

Dubbed by local news outlets "the Fifth Settlement Murderer", Selim previously confessed during interrogation that the true number of his victims outnumbered the ones who had already been discovered by the authorities.

The bodies of the women were revealed separately, each found naked in deserted areas in provinces outside Cairo. Selim admitted he knew his victims online, some of whom he claimed were sex workers.

The autopsy reports suggested the three women were killed by the same perpetrator, as all exhibited similar signs of torture, including strangulation and flogging wounds.

The evidence against Selim included a fingerprint on one of the women’s clothes.  Laboratory tests of the components of their stomach and blood further indicated signs of narcotics in their system.

Local news outlets reported that Selim belonged to a rich family and acquired a degree from the most prestigious private university in Egypt, the American University in Cairo (AUC), later working as a teacher at an international school, before he quit his job. He then created a TikTok channel where he taught American English.

Over the past years, women across Egypt have spoken out on social media about sexually-based offences as part of the #MeToo movement. 

In 2017, a Reuters’ survey ranked Cairo as "the world's most dangerous megacity for women." Statistically, around 7.8 million Egyptian women undergo a form of gender-based violence every year, according to a UN survey released in 2015.