CAIRO: Forensic investigators are currently examining the possibility that charges brought against Ramadan Mansour – also known as the Turbini killer who raped and murdered young boys – could unravel the mystery of a 1998 train accident in Kafr Al Dawar.
According to press reports, Mansour arrested last month on charges of sexually abusing and murdering 40 street children, boasted to police that he had caused the train crash which left 58 people dead and another 175 injured.
The prosecution that is currently reviewing the technical and forensic evidence relating to the accident is referring to experts with regard to the issue. A train conductor, who had witnessed Mansour abusing a child at the rear of a train that was approaching Kafr Al Dawar, had threatened to report the incident to the police at the next station.
Mansour responded by flashing his knife and pulling a block found at the back of each locomotive that is instrumental in maintaining the supply of air to the train motors. When pulled it brings the train to halt. A railway official protested that said Mansour’s statements are not plausible. He said that separating one car from the rest of the train is not as easy as pulling a hand-brake or any other apparatus within passengers reach.
He stressed other more complex technical faults were behind the train accident
Meanwhile, families of children who have been missing for years have been sending mugshots of their sons to the prosecutor’s office in hopes of discovering whether their loved ones were among Mansour’s victims. When showed a photo of a boy from Damanhour, who had been missing for the last three years, Mansour said he had never seen him.
But he says he has committed so many crimes that he does not remember numbers and places.
He said whenever he wanted to forget a crime he had committed, he would tempt a boy and kill him.
Evidence of the crimes first began to surface when the corpses of children were stumbled upon in different cities. The victims bodies were buried alive or dumped in the Nile or in some of the Shubra metro station’s underground passages as well as in the sewage system.
The corpses of the victims, who reportedly hail from Cairo, as well as other provinces including Qalubia, Alexandria, Beheira, Beni Suef and Gharbia, continued to pose a big puzzle for the police until Ahmed Samir Abdel Menem, 18, and Mohammed Al-Suweisi, fell into a police trap.
Investigations revealed that the duo were part of four pedophiles who used to entice street children frequenting train stations into boarding the top of the trains, where they forced them to take off their clothes and molested them.
The boys were then thrown naked under the train wheels moving in opposite directions or in areas close to the scenes of molestation.
Abdel Menem and Al-Suweisi confessed to having been Mansour’s accomplices.
The first two culprits admitted to having killed a child from Tanta, identified as Mohamed Kamal, for having acted as a material witness in court case against Mansour who was sentenced to jail as a result.
After Mansour was released, he ordered the gang to murder the boy.
