CAIRO: Episodically, Egypt wakes up to an alarming crime completely foreign to the nature of Egyptian society. One such particularly horrible crime, which took place just last week, was that of a father who killed his own children.
The instrument he used to commit the crime was a sword. In symbolic terms, this is a reference to the main weapon used in pre-Islamic times. The names of the boys too are significant: Islam and Abdel Rahman, symbolize religion and mercy, while Yasmin denotes romance and tenderness.
The killing of children generally has a special status, namely that of a kind of suicide known as “extended suicide because the murderer kills that which is dearest to him – his children.
It is also significant that the killing was not a quiet affair, but rather a bloody murder, which left the blood, flesh and remains of the victim available for all to see for the father stabbed the dead bodies up to 90 times.
After he killed them, the father walked in the street holding his blood-stained sword, and even boarded a microbus. He went to Sphinx Square and confessed his crime to a traffic patrol officer who identified him as either bad or mad.
Calmly, he said: “I have killed my children to prevent them from growing up mentally ill like me – so as not to suffer like me and not to face all the stresses on live in Egypt now.
Such as crime is not without precedent in Egypt, or in the world, but this one is somehow different and has the flavor of Egypt and Egyptians – the rich, the poor and the ordinary people.
The killer told his interrogator: “I love my kids too, but they were possessed by an omnipotent power. Then I decided to get rid of them and to cut up their bodies. I am not mentally ill, and I never saw a psychiatrist.
In this Egyptian case, the first reaction in the press focused on the act of murder and its possible connections with that poverty, which is certainly not the case. The killer could have been subjected to social pressures, which are typical of Egyptian life, but they do not constitute the whole picture.
Ahmed, the killer, prayed at the mosque regularly. He was also made the call to prayer, the ultimate act of worship, and had strong religious commitment.
His belief that his children possessed omnipotent powers is one explanation for why he stabbed them repeatedly. It perhaps also suggests that he has a sense of harsh insecurity and a loss of basic trust. His acquisition of a sword suggests the desire for a symbol of strength and heritage.
His wife provided evidence of the killer’s mental history, which showed he had a fluctuating work record and an unstable lifestyle. She admits of marked mood and behavior swings, most likely due to a disorder in his brain chemistry, especially dopamine, serotonin and nor-adrenaline.
Based on this, it seems a diagnosis of Manic Depressive Psychosis is most likely.
