The Egyptian prosecutor general has officially declared, for the first time, details about the murder of three women allegedly committed by a man believed to be a serial killer, a shocking case making news headlines in recent days.
According to a statement released on Tuesday evening by the prosecutor general’s office, an Egyptian suspect, who also holds a US passport, admitted during interrogation that he killed an unidentified number of women other than the three whose bodies were discovered earlier this month.
Dubbed by local news outlets "the Fifth Settlement Murderer", in connection to a luxurious gated community on the outskirts of Cairo where he reportedly lived and killed his victims, a 36-year-old man, named Karim, has recently been arrested. He is now facing charges of consuming narcotics and torturing his victims to death.
In recent weeks, the bodies of the women were discovered separately, each naked in deserted areas in provinces outside Cairo, as their clothes were extracted in other far areas afterwards.
The autopsy reports suggest that the three women were killed by the same person, as all exhibited similar signs of torture, including strangulation and flogging wounds.
The evidence against the alleged perpetrator also included a fingerprint on one of the women’s clothes. On the other hand, laboratory tests of the components of their stomach and blood further indicated narcotics in their system.
Following investigations and the examination of CCTV feed in the areas leading to the location of the bodies, security forces managed to identify and apprehend the suspect.
The authorities confiscated two mobile phones and a laptop belonging to him on which he videotaped the incidents committed inside a sound-proof room at his flat allocated for his practices, news outlets reported.
The videos in question showed him performing sexual acts with his victims after they died, the reports added.
During interrogation, the suspect confessed that he knew his victims online, some of whom he claimed were sex workers. The suspect asked them to go over to his home where he performed unusual sexual activities with them before he forced the women to consume drugs and killed them.
The suspect, who reportedly acquired a college degree from the most prestigious university in Egypt, the American University in Cairo, and had worked as a teacher at an international school before he quit his job. He created a TikTok channel where he taught American English.
No further details were immediately available till the publication time; but as investigations are underway, new facts about the shocking case are expected to resurface.
Over the past years, women across Egypt have spoken out on social media about sexually-based offences as part of the #MeToo movement, as many went public and reported such atrocities.
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.
