Egypt tycoon charged with ordering Lebanese singer’s killing

Egyptian tycoon Hisham Talaat Mustafa was charged on Tuesday with paying two million dollars for the brutal killing of Lebanese pop singer Suzanne Tamim, reportedly his one-time lover.

Mustafa was arrested and charged with ordering the murder of Tamim at her upmarket flat in Dubai in July, Egyptian prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmud said in a statement carried by the official MENA news agency.

Tamim, 30, who rose to fame after winning a Lebanese talent show in 1996 but recently had disappeared from the public eye, was stabbed several times and her throat cut, allegedly by a retired policeman paid by Mustafa.

Mustafa, a stalwart of the ruling National Democratic Party and member of the Shura Council, Egypt’s upper house of parliament, runs the Talaat Mustafa Group real estate conglomerate worth several billion dollars.

He is also said to be close to President Hosni Mubarak’s son and heir apparent Gamal.A judicial source said Mustafa, who was born in 1959, had been arrested and was being held pending trial.