A young grocer who murdered a five-year-old girl and buried her in his bathroom because her mother owed him just £50 has been sentenced to death by hanging.
The horrifying killing took place in the city of Minya, in Egypt, on July 16 last year.
A court ruled yesterday the convicted killer, named only as Manar, 20, is now set to be executed for the murder of little Duha Ashraf.
The five-year-old was killed out of revenge against her mother, named as Mona Omar Mohamed, 45, who reportedly owed the grocer EGP 1,500 (£50), the court heard.
Manar also believed that Mona had trashed his reputation with the locals.
So he lured Duha to his home with the promise of chocolate before he killed her and buried her lifeless body in a bathroom on the ground floor of his home.
The court heard how he had battered her to death.
Mona, also a fruit and vegetable trader, and her son Abdel Rahman, 19 years old, informed Brigadier General Hatem Rabi, head of the Criminal Investigation Branch in northern Minya, that her young daughter was missing.
An investigation was launched and surveillance cameras were checked, but they did not turn up anything.
A few days later, however, the young girl's friends were playing near the accused's house when they found the body and the suspect was subsequently detained.
The house was searched and the young girl's body was found, covered in bruises and injuries sustained during the fatal attack, including fractures and a brain haemorrhage.
Lamia Ashraf Ali Khalaf, a 25-year-old student and the victim's sister, later told the court that the defendant had tried to extract EGP 300,000 (£10,000) from the family, threatening to kill the little girl if they did not comply.
A search of Manar's phone revealed that he had threatened to kill the young girl, via text messages sent to her family, if they did not pay up.
The Minya Criminal Court, headed by Counselor Suleiman Atta Al-Shahed, sentenced the defendant to death by hanging over the gruesome murder after having determined that it was premeditated.
