New campus femicide sparks outrage in Egypt

CAIRO: Egypt detained a male student on Wednesday on suspicion of murdering a female student who allegedly rejected his advances, after the second such campus femicide in two months, prosecutors said.

The suspect, from Zagazig, 60-km north of Cairo, stands accused of killing his victim, identified only by her first name Salma, by "repeatedly stabbing her with a knife", a prosecution statement said.

Murder carries the death penalty in Egypt and the country sentenced more people to death last year than any other, according to human rights group Amnesty International. It was third highest in the number of executions carried out.

The latest killing revived memories of the June murder of student Nayera Ashraf, stabbed to death in front of her university in Mansoura, 150-km north of Cairo. After convicting and sentencing to death her killer, Mohamed Adel, the court called for changes to the law to allow executions to be broadcast live as a deterrent to others. Capital punishment in Egypt is rarely carried out in public or broadcast.