The Mansoura Criminal Court yesterday issued a preliminary verdict sentencing Mohamed Adel to death on charges of premeditated murder of student Naira Ashraf, a fellow university student who refused his advances, last week.

The court sought the non-binding opinion of Egypt’s Grand Mufti on the verdict, as per the penal code.

The verdict is not final and can be appealed.

The court did not need more than two days to issue its verdict, with the first session of the trial beginning on Sunday.

The prosecution said Adel had beaten and stabbed Naira Ashraf multiple times in broad daylight last week in front of shocked onlookers after she rejected his marriage proposals.

The prosecutor added that Adel had confessed to having committed the crime.

The case sent shockwaves across social media, especially after a similar crime was committed against a Jordanian female university student days earlier. Twenty-one-year-old Iman Rashid was shot dead on campus.

Rashid’s killer shot himself as police were coming to arrest him. He died as a result of his wounds.

According to a United Nations survey conducted in 2015, about eight million women were victims of violence committed by their partners or relatives, or by strangers in public spaces.

On Monday Egypt issued an arrest warrant for a prominent judge after his wife was found buried on his remote farm, her face disfigured by nitric acid.