CAIRO - Egyptian tycoon Hisham Talaat Mustafa was charged on Tuesday with paying two million dollars for the brutal killing of Lebanese pop singer Suzanne Tamim, reportedly his ex-lover. Mustafa was arrested and charged with ordering the murder of Tamim at her upmarket flat in Dubai in July, Egyptian prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmud said in a statement carried by the official MENA news agency.

Tamim, 30, who rose to fame after winning a Lebanese talent show in 1996 but recently had disappeared from the public eye, was stabbed several times and her throat cut, allegedly by a retired policemen paid by Mustafa.

Mustafa, a stalwart of the ruling National Democratic Party and member of the Shura Council, Egypt's upper house of parliament, runs the Talaat Mustafa Group real estate conglomerate worth several billion dollars. He is also said to be close to President Hosni Mubarak's son and heir apparent Gamel.

A judicial source said Mustafa, who was born in 1959, had been arrested and was being held pending trial. Telephone operators at Talaat Mustafa Group hung up when asked for information on the case.
Retired Egyptian policeman Mohsen al-Sukari has been arrested and charged with carrying out the murder, the prosecutor said. Local media said Sukari worked as a security contractor for various Egyptian companies.

Mustafa allegedly paid Sukari two million dollars to go to Dubai and stake out her flat from a hotel room. He bought a knife, went to her flat saying he worked for the building owner and stabbed the singer to death when she opened the door, the prosecutor said.

Tamim's life had been marred by domestic disputes, including a rocky marriage with her second husband and agent who had accused her in 2004 of being behind an attempt on his life. Egyptian media said Tamim had a relationship with Mustafa over a three-year period which ended several months ago. The singer then left Egypt for London before moving to Dubai.

In August, an edition of Egyptian daily Al-Dustur was seized after it said an unidentified "important Egyptian figure" was involved in the murder. The article alleged that a former Egyptian police officer as well as two hotel security officials had confessed to killing the singer for an Egyptian client. Al-Dustur's managing editor Ibrahim Eissa was referred to public prosecutors for breaking a ban on publishing articles about the case, a judicial source said. The source told AFP that the public prosecutor had banned the media from reporting on the investigation into the singer's death as it was still in progress.

Mustafa is the youngest son of the founder of the group of 30 companies, Talaat Mustafa, according to the company website.The company is involved in construction, property and luxury tourist developments as well as land reclamation and agriculture. The younger Mustafa is described as an account by training with "an excellent mix between practical and academic experience."

Shares in Talaat Mustafa Group, which were initially offered at 11 Egyptian pounds (around two dollars) in November, were trading down sharply at 4.99 pounds on the Egyptian Stock Exchange on Tuesday.