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The Blue Veil Betrayal: How "Al-Qadira" Used Kinship and Gas to Cover a Cairo Murder · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine the heat. Cairo, twenty eighteen. We're in the fifteenth
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: of May city. It's usually a quiet, predictable kind of place.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, life follows a rhythm there, and part of that
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: rhythm is Ahmed retired civil servant. But he didn't really retire.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Right, he became a baker, hard work. At two point
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: three in the afternoon, end of his shift, he's.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Walking home, just expecting, you know, the usual peace and
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: quiet his wife on war.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: But that expectation just shatters the moment he reaches his
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: apartment door, third floor.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: He smells it. First gas, faint maybe, then bam, overwhelming
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: raw and natural gas.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It's terrifying.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Instant kicks in absolutely he doesn't even knock, just bursts in,
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: yelling for Annwar. Runs straight to the kitchen and.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Finds the gas tap just cranked open.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Fully, fully open, nothing cooking, just hissing gas filling the apartment.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Oh my god. So he throws over the windows, trying
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: to air the place out, still yelling for ann War,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: thinking maybe she made a terrible.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Mistake, exactly an accident, a horrible, dangerous lapse in concentration.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: But the silence she wasn't answering, No and that silence
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: was worse than the gas. He follows it to the
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: bedroom and that's where he finds her. He finds on
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: war on the floor, covered in blood, clearly gone. His
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: whole world just ended right there.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: It's an absolutely brutal scene. And today we're diving into
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: this case. It's a story about trust, deep betrayal, and
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: a killer known as al.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Kadira, the ruthless one.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Ahmed and anwar for a moment. They'd
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: lived there a long.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Time, over fifteen years, non respected in the neighborhood. Ahmed
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: took that early retirement about three years before this.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Happened, but straight into baking. That's not exactly taking it easy.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: No, it was a tough job physically, but he did
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: it to keep them comfortable. On war, everyone says, was
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: just lovely, always helping neighbor and the routine was like clockwork,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: wasn't it ironclad. Ahmed left before dawn, back around two
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: two point thirty pm, predictable.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: And that predictability, it turns out, became crucial for the killer.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Tragically. Yes, it defined the window of our tunity.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: So Ahmed finds her, the shock, the grief, neighbors must
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: have heard.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, he breaks down completely, Neighbors come running, police arrive, forensics, chaos.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: But also, you know, the immediate concern is Ahmed and
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: dealing with all that gas.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Right, the gas itself. What did that tell investigators? Just
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: cranking it open like that, It.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Screams premeditation, cold calculation. This wasn't a panic move after
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: the crime.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: It was part of the plan.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Exactly, a deliberate attempt to destroy everything, evidence, the scene,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: maybe even cause an explosion to cover it all up.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Huge risk.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: So Ahmed stumbling in opening the windows to clear the fumes,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: he actually saved the crime scene inadvertently.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, he saved himself, saved the building and preserved the
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: evidence the killer wanted gone, Which leads us to the
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: scene itself.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: What did the police find? What were the first clues?
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Okay, first big thing. No forced entry doors, windows all
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: secure from the outside.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Meaning anwar let the killer in willingly.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Had to be someone she knew, someone she felt safe
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: opening the door to.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And wasn't there something about tea?
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, really poignant detail. A tray in the living area,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: two cups of tea, freshly.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Made and war made them.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Her fingerprints were on both cups. She prepared tea for
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: her guest, but they never drank it. Nope. Untouched suggests
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: hospitality was offered, maybe a brief moment of normalcy, and
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: then violence erupted very quickly.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: And the violence itself, where did it happen?
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: In the bedroom? It was brutal, multiple stab wounds, neck, chest, abdomen,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: a ferocious attack.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, so someone she knew let inside attacked in the bedroom.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: What about motive robbery?
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: That was the immediate thought. Yeah, the bedroom closet, a
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: wardrobe was open and things were missing is significant thing.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Very Ahmed confirmed it. Forty five thousand Egyptian pounds in cash.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Wow, where did that come from?
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: He'd saved it up from his jobs, had it ready
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: for a bank deposit on Sunday? That and some gold jewelry.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Gone forty five pounds in Cairo back then. That's a
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: lot of money for a family like theirs, Isn't.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: It a substantial amount? Likely a huge chunk of their savings.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Makes the motive feel very sharp, very focused.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: And was anything else disturbed apart from the closet.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: And that's the key point. No, just the closet. The
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: killer didn't ransack the place.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: They knew exactly what they were looking for and where it.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Was precisely, which points back again to someone with intimate
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: knowledge of the household, their finances, their habits.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the police know it's a likely someone known
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: to anwar motive seems to be robbery, targeted robbery. What
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: forensic evidence tied it together?
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Amidst all the horror? In that bedroom they found one
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: small crucial thing almost missed, probably with the gas funes
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: and everything. Well, was it a single footprint in the
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: blood footprint?
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: And analysis showed it belonged to a woman's shoe.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Woman's shoe. Okay, that narrows it down significantly.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: The killer was female, yes, and she was in that
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: room after the attack. Then there's the timing. Forensics put
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: the time of death between eight and yree am and
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: nine to zero am, right in.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: That window after Ahmed left for.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Work miles away at the bakery and long before he
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: was due back. Perfect timing if you knew his routine.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Do they have any initial suspects besides the general idea
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: of someone known, well.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: They did look briefly at a neighbor upstairs. Apparently there
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: had been some recent arguments some friction with.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Annwar standard police work checking known conflicts.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Exactly, but she was cleared quickly. The neighbor insisted she
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: wouldn't want this for anwar despite their issue. So that
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: was a dead end.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: They needed something else, something outside the apartment, right.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: And that's when surveillance footage came into play. There was
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: a maintenance center nearby.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Run by young guy Kareem had a camera pointing.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Down the street and that camera caught everything the approach
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: to the building.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: What it did show.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: It showed a woman entering the building at seven am
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: and leaving exactly one hour later eight am eight am.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: That fits perfectly with the forensic timeline eight point two
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: nine zero zero em dead on.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: And she was wearing something distinctive, a blue veil, a
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: kimar azrak, a blue veil.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: And when she left, could they see anything else?
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Two critical things. First, she looked incredibly stressed, hurried, agitated.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Understandable maybe, but the second thing.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: The second thing was damning. There were there visible bloodstains
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: on that blue veil.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, so they have the footage, the blue veil,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the blood. They show it to Ahmed, yes, and.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: His reaction it's described as just utter shock, disbelief, because
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: he recognized her immediately.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Not a stranger, not just an acquaintance.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: No, he apparently just said, impossible, Sama, my sister wouldn't
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: do this, his sister's half sister, same father, Sama, the
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: woman in the blue veil.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, we need to understand who same is this? Alcadeira?
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Right, Samma was forty five. She'd married young, but her
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: husband hadn't more or less abandoned her. She was raising
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: their daughter alone.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Was she like publicly?
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Publicly? She cultivated this image very devout, struggling financially but pious,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: always helping out where she could, played on sympathy, it
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: seems well. Privately, privately, especially known to close family. Apparently,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: she was seen as deeply manipulative, self serving, lacking contentment
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: or rita as the term is.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Used bag ten. So it wasn't just poverty driving her.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: It seems the issue was deeper, a feeling of entitlement,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: maybe that she deserved what others had, regardless of how
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: she got it. And she used a powerful cultural value
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: to get close, which is sillat al ram, the importance
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: the duty of maintaining kinship ties, family bonds.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: She used that to get back into Ahmed's life right
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: after being estranged for years.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, but about two and a half years before the murder,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: she reappears wants to rebuild the relationship. Why then, because
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: she'd found out Ahmed was doing okay financially now stable
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: and crucially he and Anwar lived alone, an easier target.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: And Ahmed and Enward just welcomed her.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Back with open arms. It sounds like hosted her for
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: days at a time, gave her money, helped her out,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: especially with her daughter's wedding coming out.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Oh while she was wanting planning.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: This, apparently taking their kindness, accepting their help. But all
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: the while she was watching, learning their routines, figuring out
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: where they kept their valuables, especially the goal two.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: And a half used this. Wow, So what was the
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: final trigger?
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Thursday, the day before the murder, Sama was staying with them.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Ahmed comes home without forty.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Five thousand pounds, the cash for the bank deposit.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he tells Anwar right there that he's putting
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: it in the bedroom closet until Sunday and Sama overheard
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: this every word and suddenly the plan kicks into high gear.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: How did she set it up with another manipulation. She
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: suddenly claims her daughter needs her urgently down in Benny
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: suef an emergency says she has to leave early Friday morning,
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: not Saturday as planned.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: So she creates an excuse to.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Leave early exactly. She even leaves the house with Ahmed
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: before dawn on Friday, walks with him partway, pretending she's
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: heading straight for the bus.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Station, but she didn't go to the bus station.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: No, this part is just chillingly calculated. She finds a
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: tuck tuck parked in a dark spot near the building.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: And she hides there, hides waiting.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Waiting for about thirty minutes, just to be absolutely sure
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Ahmed was gone off to the bakery cleared the area.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: When she goes back at seven am back to the.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Apartment, and she wasn't empty handed. She'd stolen a knife
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: from their kitchen earlier, hidden it under her veil, that
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: blue veil and nar lets her back in anwar must
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: have been surprised to see her back so soon, but
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Sama had another excuse ready. She felt sick, couldn't face
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: the journey.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: And War, being anwar.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Is kind concerned, takes her in, goes to make that
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: tea We mentioned earlier.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: The two cups of tea exactly.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: But before they can sit down, an War turns maybe
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: to get her phone from.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: The bedroom, and Sama follows her, follows.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Her into the bedroom and attacks her violently with the hidden.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Knife, just unbelievably brutal.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: After the attack, she goes straight to the closet, takes
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: the cash, takes the gold, then walks to the kitchen,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: opens the gas tap fully open, wipes down anything she
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: might have touched, leaving no fingerprints on the tap itself.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Then she leaves the apartment at eight am, caught on camera.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: And then she actually travels to Bennie Souf.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, then she makes the journey. But here's the final
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: piece of deception, the lie that tripped her up.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: What was that?
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: As soon as she gets to Benny Seuwiff much later, obviously,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: she calls Ahmed to tell him she'd arrived safely at
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: seven am that morning, But.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: She left the apartment building at eight am.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: The camera proved it exactly. She created a fake alibi,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: claiming she was hundreds of miles away during the murder
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: time frame, but the camera footage showed her right there
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: leaving the scene after her claimed arrival time elsewhere.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: That contradiction must have been impossible to explain away.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: It was when the police confronted her with the timeline
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: the foot is showing her leaving at eight am versus
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: her claim of arriving in Benny soof at seven am.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: She broke down and confessed, confess to everything, the planning,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: the theft, the murder, the gas.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I just can't imagine being omde in that moment hearing
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: his own sister, who he'd helped, we'd welcome back, admit
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: to killing his wife for money.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: The betrayal is just staggering. And with the confession, the footprint,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: the surveillance video, the timeline inconsistencies, the evidence was overwhelming.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: What was the legal outcome?
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Sama al Kadira was convicted and sentenced to death.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: So when we look back at this whole horrifying story,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: what's the takeaway? The analysis seemed to focus on something
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: specific about Sama.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it comes back to that idea of rita contentment.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: The point made was that financial hardship, while real, doesn't
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: explain or justify this level of calculated violence and betrayal.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: The root issue was presented as her fundamental lack of contentment,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: her belief that she was owed what others had earned.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: She twisted the idea of kinship of family duty into
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: a weapon completely.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: I heard it use the very thing meant to foster
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: closeness and support as a cover for years of plotting
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: and ultimately murder. It really makes you think, it does,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: and it leaves us with a pretty unsettling question for
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: you listening right now. We saw how Sama could fake kinship,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: this really sacred bond for two and a half years,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: all while accepting kindness, hospitality, plotting.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: If that kind of fundamental relationship can be so convincingly faked,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: used as a mask by someone driven purely by self interest.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Then what other masks are out there? How many other
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Alkadra figures, people prioritizing their own gain above any sense
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: of morality or connection might be operating right under the
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: surface of seemingly normal interactions. That's something to really ponder.