Egyptian tycoon wins bid to throw out UK lawsuit over singer's murder
Talaat Moustafa, CEO of Talaat Moustafa Group, was convicted in Egypt of paying a former police officer to stab Suzanne Tamim, 30, to death at her luxury apartment in Dubai.
He was initially sentenced to death in 2009, before his conviction was overturned on appeal. Following two retrials, Talaat Moustafa was convicted again and jailed for 15 years. He was pardoned by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in 2017.
Tamim, who rose to fame after winning a television talent show in the 1990s, had been in a relationship with Iraqi-British kickboxer Riyadh Al-Azzawi before she was killed.
Al-Azzawi sued Talaat Moustafa at London's High Court in 2022, seeking damages for the psychological and emotional damage he said he suffered as a result of Tamim's murder.
Talaat Moustafa sought to have the case thrown out, arguing Al-Azzawi's lawyers did not provide all relevant evidence when they were given permission to bring the case and that it should be heard in Dubai, rather than London.
In a ruling dismissing the case on Friday, Judge Christopher Butcher said Al-Azzawi did not disclose relevant information about whether the lawsuit was brought too late when he sought permission to serve the case on Talaat Moustafa in Egypt.
The judge also said that "the courts of Dubai are clearly and distinctly more appropriate" if the case were to proceed.
Talaat Moustafa's English lawyers did not immediately comment. Al-Azzawi's lawyers could not be contacted for comment.
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Warning: This article contains details that some may find distressing, including violence and descriptions of a sexual nature. I have reported on numerous court cases covering some horrific murders and nothing could prepare me or the jury for what we would see and hear during the trial of Yostin Monday he was found guilty of the double murder of Albert Alfonso, 62, and Paul Longworth, 71, in their London a journalist working on the case I knew Mosquera was accused of killing and dismembering Mr Alfonso and Mr Longworth - after all, I had been in Bristol when the grim discovery was made of their bodies in two suitcases at the Clifton Suspension had also found out Mosquera and Mr Alfonso originally met because they both made extreme sex videos which were posted online - so we knew this was going to be a distressing story to cover for all involved. Now that a verdict has been delivered, we can reveal that two trials were started into the at the Old Bailey started in May, but collapsed due to problems identifying accurate timings on some of the computer trial was moved to Woolwich Crown Court and started all over again at the end of June.I bring up the fact that there were two trials, because two trials means two both trials, the jury were asked to watch an extremely harrowing video of Mosquera and Mr Alfonso having sex before Mr Alfonso was brutally stabbed to death on 8 July last time the judge, Mr Justice Bennathan, warned them that they were about to watch a distressing bit of footage, filmed on four different cameras set up in Mr Alfonso's bedroom. But he said it was necessary to do so to help bring justice. You could see there was a knife which Mosquera had concealed on a table under some then began with an extreme sex act between Mosquera and Mr Alfonso very quickly turned into an unexpected was wearing a white swimming cap and a black leather eye mask when Mosquera attacked him with the knife. The eye mask depriving him of one of his was so tense in court. There was total was such a traumatic watch, it was first played without any next day, the sound was broadcast, which made it so much Mosquera was carrying out the murder, you could hear him ask Mr Alfonso if he "liked it".Then you hear Mr Alfonso take his last breath. Police from both forces investigating the case, Avon and Somerset Police and the Metropolitan Police, said they were profoundly affected by the officer at the Met said a colleague went "white as a sheet" after viewing it, and officers told me despite being used to watching many grim things, it was "by far one of the worst things they had ever seen in all their careers".But for a jury - made up of everyday people, picked entirely at random – they did not ask to be part of this trial, or choose a career path where they would be exposed to such graphic makes you wonder how they coped with seeing these the end of the day during the first trial, one jury member handed the judge a note saying they could not bear to watch it again and asked to be jury was now down from 12 to 11 people. Recoiled in his seat When the first trial collapsed my first thought was about that poor jury that had been made to sit through all that footage for the retrial, I was in a fortunate position that I did not have to watch the murder, instead I chose to watch the second what they were seeing, I was not surprised by their man physically lurched back in his seat, recoiling from what he was seeing, another woman wearing a scarf tightly wrapped it around her mouth as if trying to protect prosecution told the jurors they blurred out as much as they video was played to them three times in the first three days. I was covering the trial, along with Adam Crowther, tracking its twists and turns for the BBC Sounds podcast Bodies in the and Adam made different decisions on whether to watch the did not look later told me it was probably the most shocking thing he has ever, and would ever, see in his the cameras captured Mr Alfonso being murdered, his ex-partner and best friend, Mr Longworth, had already been placed in the base of a divan bed in a room next had been dead for hours after being fatally attacked with a hammer by Mosquera. 'Serious demand on jury' Through the trial we heard about Mr Alfonso's predilection for extreme included accounts of domination, degrading sex acts and a world of online videos that are made, posted online and bought and sold – many aspects of which would be seen as disturbing by had claimed it was Mr Alfonso who had killed Mr Longworth – and it was following this that he had feared for his own life and killed Mr Alfonso after a loss of of everyone we spoke to who knew Mr Alfonso, no-one described him as the jury would agree and it took them just over five hours to find Mosquera guilty of both to the jurors, Mr Justice Bennathan acknowledged the "serious demands" that had been placed on them "in this case more than most"."They were terrible, brutal events and to read about it is a dreadful thing, but to see it is really shocking," he are now eligible to six counselling sessions if they have had to sit through distressing even with help, they will likely never be able to unsee what they had to watch.
