CAIRO: The Arab Contractors driver accused of killing eight and injuring six others in a shooting rampage, told a criminal court Sunday at the first hearing in the case that he “can’t remember anything.”
Mahmoud Sweilam, who was driving 22 workers from 15th of May City to the Arab Contractors’ electrical and mechanical projects workshops in Abo Al Nomros, 20 km south of Cairo on July 5, reportedly stopped the bus, took out an automatic rifle and fired randomly at the passengers, leaving six dead and six wounded. Two of the casualties died later that day.
While the prosecution demanded the highest possible penalty against the driver, the defense team demanded the postponement of the session to confirm his “sanity and responsibility for his action” through a psychiatric examination.
Sweilam was brought into the court under heavy security.
Injured victims also attended the session without their lawyers as witnesses to the incident.
Sweilam previously told interrogators that he had informed the police three years ago that his neighbors were digging for monuments underneath their homes.
Sweilam had told Abdel Fatah Salem, one of the victims, that he believed there were monuments underneath his own home, after which Salem sought the help of Sweilam’s neighbors to dig for these monuments. When Sweilam warned him against that, Salem threatened that he would “cause him trouble” at work and so he decided to kill him.
The forensic report said that bullets found in the bodies of the victims matched the ones found in the confiscated weapon that Sweilam said he used.
The investigation included the accounts of over 27 witnesses, technical reports from the Criminal Evidence Authority, the forensics and antiquities authorities as well as Sweilam’s detailed confession.
Reports said that Sweilam was a fully sane person and was in full control of his faculties when he committed the crime.
A report by the Antiquities Authority denied the existence of any antiquities under Sweilam’s house.
