Ever since Hisham Talat Mustafa was sentenced to death for murder, I have been wondering what device will be found to save him from the gallows.

Mustafa is no ordinary convict. He is – or was – a pillar of the Egyptian establishment: a multi-millionaire property magnate and a member of the upper house of parliament. Last May, he was convicted of paying a hit man $2 million to kill Lebanese singerSuzanne Tamim (with whom he is presumed to have had an affair).

He is appealing against his death sentence and, judging by a reportin Asharq al-Awsat, a couple of other possible escape routes are emerging. 

Although his lawyers recently described him as being in good health, he is now apparently suffering from high blood pressure and has developed an irregular heartbeat which may require treatment outside prison.

Parallel with that, there are rumours of moves by Egyptian MPs to change the law so that blood money can be paid in murder cases. In that event, the death penalty would be reduced to seven years in prison.

Naturally, Mustafa is distancing himself from this. The paper quotes "legal sources" as saying: "Hisham [Talat Mustafa] himself does not favour this solution."

The sources added: "The rumors that [he] is prepared to pay 700 million Egyptian Pounds ($125 million) to the family of Suzanne Tamim, in exchange for them dropping the case against him, are unfounded. We are in contact with Hisham, and discuss with him what is happening … and he feels that the issue of paying blood money is out of the question … he remains fully confident of his innocence.”

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 7 October 2009.