Thursday 27 april 2006
May he rest in peace
Compiled by
Hugh Nicol
The Megawareen Cemetery in Manshiyet Nasr witnessed a curious chase between a thief in a private car and police.
He'd stolen a corpse that had only been buried one hour earlier, in order to sell it to students at the Faculty of Medicine.
Detectives had spotted a shifty-looking individual standing beside a car, parked outside the cemetery, putting what looked like a heavy package in the boot.
When they approached him, he jumped in and drove off at high speed. Officers caught up with him, and searched the car, finding a body in the boot in a large black plastic bag.
When questioned by officers, he said he'd been stealing corpses for quite some time, selling them for LE10,000 each to medical students.
They also discovered that he had LE4 million in the bank, the profits of his macabre business. The corpse, that of an elderly man, has now been re-interred. May he rest in peace. (Al-Ahram)

Cross-dressing crooks

Cairo Police have arrested two pickpockets who stole from citizens in busy parks and other public places.
The first pickpocket - a man - was arrested in Helwan, while the second - a woman - was apprehended in el-Matariya. Curiously, the man was dressed as a woman and the woman as a man.
The two cross-dressers were among 21 light-fingered citizens picked up by detectives in a recent sting operation. (Al-Akhbar)

Unrequited kindness

Giza Criminal Court has sentenced two friends - Taha Ezzat and Yasser Oweis - to a stretch with hard labour for stealing the mobile phone of a truck driver called Abdel-Aal Ismail. They also threatened the victim with violence.
Abdel-Aal was in his truck, driving to his home village in Giza, when he came across the two suspects, who forced him to stop by standing in the middle of the road.
They asked him to give them a lift to a place near his village and he kindly obliged. En route, they held a knife to his throat and ordered the driver to stop the truck and give them his mobile phone. Abdel-Aal did as he was told and then the two thugs ran off. (Al-Gomhuria)
Lonely lady

After nearly 30 years of marriage, an old lady filed for divorce from her husband.
She said that she was taking this drastic step, in order to maintain her self-respect. She went to the Giza Family Court and demanded a divorce from her 60-year-old husband on grounds of dereliction.
"My three sons are all married and I have five grandchildren. My husband insulted me appallingly, by spending too much time in the local coffee shop with his mates, especially after he'd retired," she told the court .
"I told him to mend his ways, as I didn't like being left at home all on my tod. He didn't mend his ways, so I want a divorce." (Al-Akhbar)

Husbands mean meat and money

Heba, a housewife, insisted before the Imbaba Family Court that her husband must undertake to provide her with 2kg of beef and two chickens twice a month, as well as LE10 per day.
"If he agrees, I'll drop my case for alimony and return to him with our two sons [aged nine and four]," Heba told the court.
Her husband agreed to the conditions stipulated by his 38-year-old wife, insisting in return that she must respect him and give him his legal rights. The couple were married in April 1995. (Al-Gomhuria)

Paid with the knife

A tock tock driver was stabbed in a quarrel over the fare. Belqas Police were informed by the local hospital that 17-year-old Karim Waheed, from a village near Balqas, had been admitted in a critical condition.
His elder brother told officers that Karim had argued with a customer called Gamal el-Azbani, who wanted to be taken from their home village of el-Ezbet el-Hamra to the nearby village of Ezbet Hassan Amar, but wanted to pay too little for the service. (Al-Gomhuria)

A family business

Police in Zagazig have arrested three citizens in possession of 30kg of bango they were going to sell to their clients in time for Eid el-Fitr.
Detectives were tipped off that a housewife, her son and his friend were about to sell the drugs to their customers in el-Husseiniya district of Zagazig.
The woman, 42-year-old Amina Rashad, was assisted in her drug dealing by her 22-year-old son, Ezzat, and his pal, Atef Khalil, aged 21. (Al-Ahrar)

Post-wedding grief

A wedding party was transformed into a wake, when a truck carrying guests to the party ended up in a canal in Sohag, killing four people and seriously injuring another 20. The dead included a man and his sons.
The driver, Mohammed Mohammed Abul Fotouh, was taking the guests home from the party near Juhaiyna to a village near el-Maragha.
He lost control of the steering wheel as they were driving over a bridge and the truck crashed off it into the Hishami Canal, killing a 36-year-old farmer called Mumtaz Hisham and his sons, Ahmed (14) and Mahmoud (six), as well as another 14-year-old lad called Hameda.
The Ministry of Social Affairs has decided to pay compensation to the injured and to the families of the deceased. (Al-Gomhuria)

Tragedy in Tima

A woman in Tima, Sohag Governorate was killed and her granddaughter was injured when her mentally disturbed son threw a flaming gas stove at them, because his mother was late in preparing his dinner.
Forty-nine-year-old Souad Abdel-Rahman was admitted to Tima Central Hospital with 60 per cent burns. She died shortly afterwards.
Her granddaughter, Asmaa - the daughter of her mentally disturbed son's sister - survived. (MENA)

And then there were 194...

Twenty passengers cancelled their flight from Cairo International Airport to Jeddah on Tuesday, fearing they wouldn't arrive.
The take-off of the Saudi-bound flight was delayed by four hours, due to a technical hitch reported by a maintenance crew.
The 214 passengers disembarked and waited in the transit lounge until the problem had been sorted out. But 20 passengers refused to re-embark, so the Captain flew only 194 to Jeddah. (MENA)

Death of a pilgrim

An Egyptian mu'tamer (man who has done the Omra [minor pilgrimage] to Mecca) died after flying back to Egypt.
It was in the arrivals hall that he had a fatal heart attack, because he was so delighted to see his family, having spent a fortnight away from home in Saudi Arabia.
Mohammed Ahmed Khadr, a retired 70-year-old civil servant, collapsed in arrivals, as he was reunited with his children and grandchildren. The mu'tamer died in an ambulance on the way to Heliopolis Hospital. (Al-Akhbar)
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