Cairo: Egyptian business tycoon Hesham Talaat Mustafa on Friday evening was released from prison under a presidential pardon, nearly nine years after he was jailed for inciting the murder of a Lebanese pop singer in Dubai in 2008.
Hesham left the Tora Prison, south of Cairo, driven inside a black car hours after the presidential pardon was issued, security sources and witnesses said.
Hesham, one of Egypt’s leading real-estate developers, is among 502 Egyptian inmates, who received the pardon in a presidential gesture marking next week's Muslim festival of Eid Al Fitr.
Egyptian constitution gives the head of state the right to pardon convicted inmates.
State media said that Hesham, 57, had already served three- quarters of his 15-year jail term.
Under Egyptian law, the defendant’s pre-retrial detention period is cut from the jail sentence.
Hesham was arrested in September 2008.
His release comes two months after a Cairo court turned down his request for release due to health problems.
At the time, the Administrative Court said his health problems were not life-threatening.
In 2009, an Egyptian Criminal Court sentenced Hesham to death for his role in killing Lebanese pop singer Suzan Tamim in Dubai.
Hesham was convicted of giving 2 million dollars to Mohsin Al Sukkari, an ex-policeman, in order to kill Tamim reportedly after she had jilted him. Mohsin was sentenced to death too.
In September 2010, Hesham's sentence was in a retrial reduced to 15 years in prison. Mohsin was sentenced to life in prison in the same retrial.
Both defendants pleaded not guilty during their trial, which started in October 2008 amid frenzy media attention in Egypt and the Arab world.
Hesham was an ex-lawmaker in the now-defunct party of former president Hosni Mubarak.
