Gang boss up for sex murders

2006-12-08 18:28

Cairo - Egyptian prosecutors have charged a 26-year-old gang leader from a town north of Cairo with the grisly sex murders of more than 30 street boys, said police sources on Friday.

Prosecutors in the Nile delta town of Tanta charged Ramadan Mansur with murder, rape, torture, kidnap and sexual harassment on his four-man gang's seven-year reign of terror, which extended over several provinces.

The accused, who was arrested last Sunday, confessed and identified 12 of his victims from photographs, said the sources.

"The gang leader and his accomplices gave revolting details of their atrocious crimes," said one source.

Mansur earned the nickname Al-Turbini, from the air-conditioned express trains linking Cairo with Egypt's second city of Alexandria whose roofs were the favoured location for his crimes.

Torture and chop up victims

Police say he used to rape, torture and chop up his victims on carriage roofs before tossing them on to the trackside, dead or barely alive.

One of Mansur's accomplices, whom police identified by the nickname Hamada Bazzaza (Hamada the milk bottle), accused him of requiring gang members to kidnap street children to "offer" to their boss.

"They were then forced to watch while the rape murders happened, on pain of being sexually assaulted and killed themselves."

Mansur even buried one of his victims alive after first raping and then torturing him, police cited the accomplice as saying.

A Tanta court on Thursday remanded Mansur in custody for 15 days pending trial.

- SAPA