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Rajih and Mahmoud Al-Banna: The Full Story · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's dive in picture this Manufia governor at Egypt.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: It's twenty nineteen. You're on a street, it's crowded, you know,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the usual buzz of life.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the sounds of the market, traffic may be. But
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: then right in the middle there's this this weird quiet zone.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly, a strange silence. It's focused on a young woman
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and a teenager, Mohammed astro Fraji.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: He's confronting her and it's aggressive, not just talking, it's
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: a physical He's demanding her phone.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: He violently grabs it from her, and he's not stealing it,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: not really. He's scrolling, furiously, tapping, deleting something right.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Evidence photos apparently is showing he was cheating on his
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: current girlfriend. He needed that proof gone.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: He gets what he wants, deletes the pictures. But then
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: as he walks away, he turns back gives her this
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: final terrifying threat.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: It tells her, if you say anything about this, anything
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: at all all, throw firewater in your face. Aes it.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: He threatened her with acid, just casually in public.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: It's chilling the confidence of someone who thinks there are
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: absolutely no consequences. But someone is watching.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, standing nearby is Mahmood Elbana. He's seventeen high school student.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Everyone knows him, respects him, known for being well, honorable.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Tear and that moment, that public humiliation, the acid threat
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Raji just assuming he's untouchable. That's where it all starts.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: That's the fuse being left.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: So this deep dive, it's about that collision, the story
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: of a bully backed by family, money and influence, who
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: thought he was above.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Everything, and the young man Mahmoud, who dared to stand
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: up for what was right, an act of chivalry that
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: tragically cost him everything.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: To really understand how this happened, we have to look
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: at these two teenagers. They were on such different paths.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Let's start with Raji.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Mohammed Ashraf Raji. Okay, so his family they were actually
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: quite established, involved in education, believe or not.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Pedagogy you'd think, Okay, education background, yeah, maybe discipline structure.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: You would think. But Raji's life it was pretty much
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: the opposite. Thuggery, drug use, hanging out with theminals, that
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: was his scene.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And weirdly this actually gave him some kind of status
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: ye like online.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's strange, isn't it. He was a minor figure
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: on social media. Some girls, some kids apparently admired him
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: for being this bold youth, fearless, basically untouchable.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: That untouchable part, though there wasn't just in his head.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: His family actively made sure of it.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Oh definitely. They're constantly stepping in whenever he got into trouble,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: serious Troublesometimes they'd handle it like h money mostly or connections.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: They'd pay off victims, smooth things over, make sure no
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: police reports were filed. Kept him out of the system entirely.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: So imagine growing up like that. Every time you mess up,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: maybe he commit a crime, Dad just writes a check
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: or makes a call. What does that teach you?
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: It teaches you nothing matters, that rules are for other people.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: It absolutely reinforced his worst impulses, made him more aggressive,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: more entitled.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: He learned impunity exactly.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: And this doesn't just affect him, It affects the whole community. Right,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: people see this happening, they know who did it, but
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: they also know the family will protect him. So people
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: get scared, they don't speak up.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Creates this climate of fear. Okay, so that's Roggie now
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: mo mood Elbana completely different.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Story night and day. Everyone we uh, everyone described in
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: the same way, well raised, smart, respectful, just a genuinely
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: good kid, honorable, chivalrous, that was the word people use.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: He represented the values that Roggie seemed to trample on precisely.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: And these two worlds were about to crash into each
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: other because of that incident with the phone right.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: The trigger event. So Raggie was cheating on his current girlfriend.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and his ex Rona. She lived nearby. She had
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: the proof on her phone pictures.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: So Rajji hunts her down public street, grabs the phone,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: deletes the pictures, makes the acid threat. Job done.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: He thinks he got rid of the evidence, but he
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: didn't count on someone like Ma Mood stepping in.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Mood saw it all happen with his friends, and he
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: couldn't just let it go.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: No, he actually walked up to Raji confronted him, what
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: do you say? Basically told him to leave the girl alone,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: said that kind behavior threatening a girl, it wasn't right,
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: not acceptable there in their neighborhood. He called him out
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: on his lack of honor.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Wow, how did Raji react? He wasn't used to being challenged.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Right, Reportedly, he was stunned, just totally shocked and frankly humiliated.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Here's this kid, Mamood, respected by everyone, giving him a
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: public lecture on morals.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: So Raji achieved his goal. The photos were gone, but
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: he lost face.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Big time, huge blow to his ego, to that untouchable
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: image he'd cultivated. He backed down, then let Rona go,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: but he was seething inside.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And then of course it escalates online.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Always does, doesn't it. Mamood goes home and he posts
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: an Instagram story.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: What did it say? Did he name Raji?
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: No, not by name, but the message was clear. It
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: was something like a real man doesn't fight with girls
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: or abuse them. It was a general statement, but everyone
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: knew who it was about.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Uh So it took that public humiliation and basically put
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: it out there for everyon and to see, made it
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: permanent in.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: The way exactly. It moved from a street confrontation witnessed
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: by a few to a digital broadcast, and Rogie found
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: out pretty quickly. He was apparently with his gang getting
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: high whatever. A friend messages him around ten pm that night,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: tells him about my.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Mood story, and Rogie sees this as what a direct attack?
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely a massive challenge to his pride, his authority.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: For someone whose whole identity was built on being feared
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: and untouchable, this was intolerable.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: So his reaction isn't just anger, it's planning.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, By two am that same night, Rogi and his
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: gang are putting together a plan. And let's be very
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: clear here, the information indicates this wasn't about planning a fight.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: It was about planning a.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Murder, premeditated at two.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Am, chillingly calculated. They weren't just thinking fists. They gathered weapons.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Two large knives motwa they're called locally like switchblades or
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: folding knives.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, nives? What else?
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Pepper spray that was from Mamood's friends to incapacitate anyone
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: who might try to help him, And they worked out
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: the logistics, the getaway and ambush.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: This is cold end died Mamood know this was coming.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Raji made sure it. He sent Mamood a voice message,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: an explicit threat, real kind of threat, fatal. He literally
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: said he was going to kill him, said he'd make
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: him an example, make an example meaning anyone else who
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: dared to challenge him, anyone who barks like a dog
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: behind his back as he put it, but wouldn't face
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: him directly, would end up the same way.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: There was a public declaration of intent, almost sent directly
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: to the victim, terrorizing him.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: And terrorizing anyone who might think of siding with Mamod.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: It was a declaration of war on honor itself, recorded digitally.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: And then just two days later, two.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Days later, they sprang the trap.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: So the ambush, how did you go down?
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: It was coordinated Raji and four others. They waited for
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: ma Mood when he was supposed to meet his friends.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: The moment Mahmod appeared, one guy grabs him, holds him
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: fast in, mobilizes him, while another another one immediately uses
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: the pepper spray on Mamod's friends, blinds them, stops them
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: from intervening total chaos from them. And third or fourth Yeah,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: the fourth guy was basically securing the scene, the escape route,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: making sure they could get away.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Clean, leaving Raji free, too.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Free to launch the attack. He hits my Mood, kicks him,
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: knocks him straight to the ground. Then he pulls out
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: his knife and he just stabs him repeatedly, right there
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: in the.
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  Speaker 1: Street in public with people watching.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, apparently many people saw it, but nobody moved. Nobody
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: dared to step in Raji's gang, the weapons, the sheer
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: violence of it. People were frozen, paralyzed by fear.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: That fear Rajji's family had cultivated for years. It worked,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: It kept witness as passive even during a murder.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The system of impunity didn't just empower the killer,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: It disempowered the community.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: So Raji and the gang just run.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: They fled the scene immediately. People then rushed to help.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: My mood, got him to the host.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: His father. You said he was at work.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they called him, but apparently just told him. The
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: mood was a little unwell. Can you imagine? Oh, my god,
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: and ma mood.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: He didn't make it, died in intensive care shortly after arriving.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: The kid. Everyone called honorable the hero dead because he
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: stood up for someone, because of his chivalry. As people said, unbelievable.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: What happened next? This couldn't just disappear, couldn't no way.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: This was different. The reaction was immediate and massive. Someone
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: got surveillance footage of the attack.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: The actual murder, yes, and it spread like wildfire online.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Suddenly this wasn't just a local tragedy in Manufia. It
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: became the biggest public opinion issue in Egypt. Everyone was
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: talking about Mahmood Albana.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Why such a huge reaction. Do you think more than
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: just the brutality.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: I think it tapped into a deep sense of outrage.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Outrage about the violence, yes, but also about the privilege,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: the impunity, the feeling that some people could literally get
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: away with murder because of who their family was. Mahmood's
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: death became symbolic.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Of the cost of.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Decency maybe yeah, the cost of challenging that protected status.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: The public grief was enormous. His funeral wasn't just local.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: People came from all over the country, huge crowds.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Even top religious authorities sent official condolences alas are the
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: highest Sunni Islamic authority and the Coptic Cathedral. It felt
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: like an attack on the nation's moral fabric.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: That kind of intense spotlight must have put huge pressure
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: on the investigation and the trial.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and it also fueled a lot of rumors. Things
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: got pretty wild during the trial. We should probably address
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: the main ones, the ones that got debunked.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, what were they?
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: First? There was this persistent rumor that Raji's mother tried
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: to bribe Mahmoud's parents offered them a million Egyptian pounds
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: to drop the case.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: The bribe did they know?
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Mahmood's father came out very strongly publicly denied it, said
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: justice wasn't for sale. Okay, Well, second rumor was kind
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: of bizarre. People started claiming Raji wasn't actually the one
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: in court, that his family had somehow swapped him out
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: for a body double.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Seriously, a double? Yeah.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Predictably, that was proven false pretty quickly.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: It just didn't happen. And the third one, he said,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: it was painful. It was.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: The rumor was that Rona, the girl Mamod had defended,
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: had flipped her testimony that she started claiming Raji was
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: actually her fiance and Mamood had been the aggressor bothering them.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Oh no, that would have completely twisted everything, made Mamood
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: the villain exactly.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: It would have destroyed his memory, his reason for intervening.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: But thankfully, Rona's mother fiercely denied it, said Rona would
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: never betray the boy who died defending her honor.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Good. So, with the rumors cleared away, what did the
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: actual trial conclude based on the evidence.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Well, the evidence was overwhelming, wasn't it. The surveillance video,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: the eyewitness testimony, the voice message threat, the planned nature
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: of the ambush. The court classified it clearly as premeditated murder.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Premeditated murder in Egypt that usually means.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Usually that carries the death penalty execution, which is what
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: the public was demanding. Given the certaintances.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: I sense a butt coming.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: There was a huge butt. The final verdict came as
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: a shock to many. Raji and two of the main
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: accomplices got fifteen years hard labor. The fourth got five
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: years hard labor.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Fifteen years for premeditated murder, Why not execution?
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: It came down to age, a critical legal technicality. At
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: the time of the crime, Rajji and the others hadn't
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: reached the legal age threshold required in Egypt to impose
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: the death.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Penalty, so they were minors or just under that specific threshold.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Just under that specific threshold for capital punishment. So even
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: though the crime was judged as premeditated murder, the judge's
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: hands were legally tied. Fifteen years hard labor was the
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: maximum possible sentence they could receive. Under the law for
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: offenders of that age committing that crime.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: So the very system, the legal technicalities that Rajji might
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: have felt insulated him his whole life, ultimately saved him
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: from the ultimate penalty just because of his date of birth.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: In a way, yes, it's deeply ironic. Mahmood Albana died
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: defending on challenging impunity, an impunity protected by money connections
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: and in the end by a line drawn in the
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: legal sand regarding age.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: It really makes you think, doesn't it about public space responsibility?
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: What happens when doing the right thing challenging a bully
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: can literally cost you your life. Yeah, and the bully
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: is shielded even by the law itself.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: In some ways, it's a profound question. Ma Mood's story
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: resonated because it highlighted that terrible conflict, the price of chivalry,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: the price of standing up when others won't, especially against
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: someone who seems protected.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: And the final detail from the source material Rajji sentence
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: fifteen years from twenty nineteen twenty twenty. He's due to
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: be released around twenty thirty five.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, he'll be a relatively young man when he gets out.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: So here's the thought. To leave our listeners with a
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: crime deemed premeditated murder by the courts avoids the maximum
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: penalty because of age. What does that tell us about justice?
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Is it always about the letter of the law, even
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: when the outcome feels incomplete?
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: And maybe more pointedly, what does it mean for that community,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: for the people who saw it happen, knowing that in
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: just over a decade Rogie will walk free among them,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: That's a really heavy question to consider.