Man held for mutilation murders
2006-01-03 20:29
Cairo - Egyptian police have arrested and detained a suspect in the brutal murders of 10 people in a village in southern Egypt, said a security source on Tuesday.
The source named the suspect as 27-year-old Mohammed Ali Mohammed and said he was a psychiatric case who had gone on record as threatening to slaughter two young girls.
Police launched a manhunt after neighbours found the mutilated bodies of the victims in three neighbouring houses in the village of Ezbet Shams el-Din, 225km south of Cairo.
The victims, four men, two women and four children, had their stomachs and throats slashed open and many of their body parts, including genitals, cut off.
The security source said the man confessed to carrying out the slaughter and that he led investigators to the murder weapon, a machete, which he had dumped in a nearby ditch.
According to the source, he also led them to locations of the victim's genitals inside their houses and the culprit was from the same village as the victims.
Police had said there was no forced entry into the houses or any sign of resistance by the victims.
Mohammed reportedly told investigators he lowered himself into the houses after scaling the walls onto the roofs.