Ashraf Mahmud, a 46-year-old Egyptian, was sentenced...

Ashraf Mahmud, a 46-year-old Egyptian, was sentenced to hang for having murdered his three children, his wife and her lover, court sources said. Mahmud, a carpenter dubbed as the "ripper of Bassatine" in his neighbourhood in Cairo, was sentenced to death by a criminal court in Cairo after the mufti, Egypt's leading cleric, approved the sentence. The case had reportedly stirred outrage in the country when it occurred in the late 1990s, as he had slit the throats of his young children while they slept. He had told the police he did not want them to suffer after the death of their mother.