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The Traitor at the Funeral · Crime Night

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to today's deep dive into the source material. I
0:03
Speaker 1: want you to close your eyes for just a second.
0:05
Speaker 1: We are going to a very specific place, and I
0:08
Speaker 1: really need you to feel the atmosphere before we even
0:11
Speaker 1: get into the timeline.
0:12
Speaker 2: Right, the setting is everything here it is.
0:14
Speaker 1: It's twenty fifteen. We are in the Egyptian Delta, specifically
0:18
Speaker 1: a place called Abu Kabir in the Sharkia Governorate. If
0:23
Speaker 1: you've never been to the Delta, picture this endless, vibrant
0:27
Speaker 1: quilt of green agricultural fields. They're cut through by these
0:31
Speaker 1: irrigation canals, all just baking under a relentless heavy sun.
0:35
Speaker 2: It's earthy, it's usually incredibly loud, with the sounds of farming.
0:39
Speaker 1: In life exactly. But in the middle of these green
0:43
Speaker 1: fields there stands a house that is completely terrifyingly silent.
0:48
Speaker 2: And that silence is wrong. It's a large, three story
0:50
Speaker 2: building standing somewhat isolated from the neighbors. It belongs to
0:53
Speaker 2: a man named haj Ali. Yeah, and silence is just
0:56
Speaker 2: not a word you would ever associate with this place.
0:59
Speaker 2: This house is usually the heartbeat of the area.
1:01
Speaker 1: It's a hub. Haj Ali is the kind of man
1:04
Speaker 1: whose door is. You know, it's never locked during the day.
1:06
Speaker 1: People are constantly coming and going.
1:08
Speaker 2: Asking for advice, seeking charity, settling disputes.
1:11
Speaker 1: Right, but on this particular day, the heartbeat has stopped,
1:15
Speaker 1: the shutters are drawn, the main iron gate is.
1:18
Speaker 2: Locked tight, and for the family members who are starting
1:20
Speaker 2: to gather outside, that silence is heavier than the heat.
1:24
Speaker 1: It really is. And that's where our deep dive begins.
1:26
Speaker 1: Today we are unpacking a true crime story that is
1:30
Speaker 1: so cinematic, so psychologically twisted, that if you saw it
1:33
Speaker 1: in a movie, you'd probably say the villain was written
1:36
Speaker 1: too intensely.
1:37
Speaker 2: You really would. We've gone through the source material, the
1:39
Speaker 2: case files, witness accounts, to reconstruct a timeline of betrayal
1:43
Speaker 2: that honestly shakes your faith in people a little bit.
1:47
Speaker 1: It's a story about the enemy within. But before we
1:50
Speaker 1: get to the psychology of the killer, we have to
1:52
Speaker 1: stand outside that gate with the.
1:53
Speaker 2: Family the inciting incident.
1:55
Speaker 1: Right, there's a sudden total drop in communication. Haj Ali,
2:00
Speaker 1: his wife, Hadjahana, and her sister Hajja Vasia have completely vanished.
2:04
Speaker 2: And we need to clarify the timeline for you here.
2:07
Speaker 2: It has been twenty four.
2:08
Speaker 1: Hours, which doesn't sound like a lot.
2:10
Speaker 2: For most people, not hearing from someone for a day
2:13
Speaker 2: isn't an absolute crisis, But for haaj Ali in a
2:18
Speaker 2: close knit rural community, yeah, that is an eternity. He's
2:23
Speaker 2: a man of rigid routine, he's a man of presence.
2:26
Speaker 2: When his phone goes unanswered for a full day, panic
2:29
Speaker 2: sets in immediately.
2:30
Speaker 1: So the scene outside the house is getting chaotic. You
2:33
Speaker 1: have the brothers of the two women standing there, the
2:35
Speaker 1: older brother and the younger brother.
2:37
Speaker 2: They're banging on the main iron gate.
2:40
Speaker 1: There's nothing, just the wind blowing through the fields. They're
2:44
Speaker 1: looking at each other and they know you know that
2:45
Speaker 1: feeling in your gut when the worst case scenario starts
2:48
Speaker 1: to feel like the only scenario.
2:49
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, that heavy dread.
2:51
Speaker 1: That's where they are.
2:52
Speaker 2: And the architecture of the house becomes this massive obstacle.
2:56
Speaker 2: The ground floor is heavily fortified. The doors are locked
3:00
Speaker 2: from the inside. That is a crucial detail. It tells
3:03
Speaker 2: the family two things.
3:05
Speaker 1: One the occupants are probably still inside.
3:07
Speaker 2: Exactly, and two, no one forced their way in through
3:11
Speaker 2: the front.
3:12
Speaker 1: So the younger brother decides he is completely done waiting.
3:16
Speaker 1: He's not waiting for a locksmith. He's not waiting for
3:18
Speaker 1: the police to show up.
3:19
Speaker 2: He finds a ladder.
3:20
Speaker 1: He does, and I want you to picture this cliing
3:22
Speaker 1: because for me, this is the moment the suspense really
3:25
Speaker 1: kicks into high gear. He props this wooden ladder up
3:29
Speaker 1: against the brick side of the building.
3:31
Speaker 2: He's aiming for a second floor window.
3:33
Speaker 1: Right, one that looks like it's been left just slightly open.
3:35
Speaker 2: It's such a desperate intrusion into his own family's home.
3:38
Speaker 2: He's climbing up rung by rung, leaving the safety of
3:41
Speaker 2: the ground, moving.
3:42
Speaker 1: Toward a silence that he just knows is hiding something terrible.
3:46
Speaker 1: He reaches the window, he pushes it open and slips inside,
3:50
Speaker 1: and the first thing that hits him isn't a smell
3:53
Speaker 1: or a body, it's a sound. The television is on.
3:56
Speaker 2: That detail always kills me. The TV is just blaring
3:59
Speaker 2: to an entirely empty room.
4:00
Speaker 1: It's ghostly.
4:01
Speaker 2: It freezes time. It means that life was happening. Someone
4:05
Speaker 2: was sitting there watching a show, getting comfortable, and then
4:08
Speaker 2: instantly they weren't.
4:09
Speaker 1: The broadcast continues, but the audience is just gone, right,
4:13
Speaker 1: so he calls out their names haj Ali Hanim. His
4:17
Speaker 1: voice is echoing in the stairwell. He moves down the
4:20
Speaker 1: hall to the bedroom.
4:21
Speaker 2: And this is where the dread turns into sheer panic.
4:24
Speaker 1: The room has been destroyed.
4:26
Speaker 2: It's been completely tossed. The massive wooden wardrobe is tipped
4:30
Speaker 2: over on its side.
4:31
Speaker 1: Which takes significant force by the way it does.
4:34
Speaker 2: Clothes are scattered everywhere. Drawers are pulled out and dumped.
4:38
Speaker 2: It's the universal visual language of a frantic robbery.
4:41
Speaker 1: But this is the key thing. There are no bodies
4:44
Speaker 1: in the bedroom.
4:45
Speaker 2: So he has to go higher.
4:46
Speaker 1: He leaves the second floor living quarters and heads up
4:49
Speaker 1: the stairs to the third floor. Now, in these rural homes,
4:53
Speaker 1: the roof isn't just a flat slab of concrete. It's
4:56
Speaker 1: a utility space.
4:57
Speaker 2: In this specific house, it was used as a chicken coop.
5:00
Speaker 1: Right, It's a working part of the farm, livestock feed storage.
5:04
Speaker 1: It's gritty.
5:04
Speaker 2: He pushes open the heavy metal door to the roof.
5:08
Speaker 2: The bright sunlight hits him, and.
5:09
Speaker 1: That's where his whole world collapses.
5:11
Speaker 2: He finds hajj Ali first.
5:13
Speaker 1: The patriarch is sprawled on the concrete ground, just soaked
5:16
Speaker 1: in blood. The brother is reeling. He spins around and
5:20
Speaker 1: a few feet away amidst the scattered chicken feed, he
5:23
Speaker 1: sees his sister, Hajjahana, and then just beyond her, the
5:27
Speaker 1: other sister, Hajja Fazzia. All three gone.
5:32
Speaker 2: The violence described in the sources is just overwhelming. This
5:34
Speaker 2: wasn't some stick em up robbery gone wrong where a
5:37
Speaker 2: guy panicked and fired a gun from across the room. Oh,
5:39
Speaker 2: this was close Quarter's butchery. Each victim sustain over fifteen
5:44
Speaker 2: stab wounds, fifteen each. Yes, that suggests an absolute frenzy.
5:50
Speaker 2: It suggests rage, or even more terrifyingly, it suggests a
5:54
Speaker 2: cold determination to make absolutely sure they were dead.
5:57
Speaker 1: In the setting itself a rooftop chicken coop, it adds
6:00
Speaker 1: to the whore. It's such a mundane domestic space completely
6:03
Speaker 1: turned into a slaughterhouse.
6:05
Speaker 2: The brothers start screaming. His screams drift down to the
6:07
Speaker 2: family waiting outside the gate, and the waiting is over.
6:10
Speaker 2: The grief begins.
6:11
Speaker 1: The police arrived, They tape off the scene. The investigation launches,
6:15
Speaker 1: but immediately the detectives are hitting a brick wall because
6:17
Speaker 1: the motive just doesn't make any sense.
6:19
Speaker 2: It makes zero sense because of who the victims were.
6:22
Speaker 2: We really need to talk about Hajjalia for a second,
6:24
Speaker 2: please do. He was seventy five years old, a retired
6:28
Speaker 2: under secretary for the Ministry of Electricity in the village hierarchy.
6:33
Speaker 1: He was a big man, very respective.
6:35
Speaker 2: Wealthy, yes, but the sources are absolutely unanimous about his character.
6:40
Speaker 2: He was a massive philanthropist.
6:42
Speaker 1: He built a monster under his.
6:43
Speaker 2: House exactly, he built a mosque. He resolved local disputes.
6:46
Speaker 2: He was the guy you went to if you couldn't
6:48
Speaker 2: pay your medical bills or needed alone you couldn't pay back.
6:51
Speaker 2: And the sisters, they were in their sixties, known for
6:54
Speaker 2: being kind, simple women. Hajja Fodzia often just stayed over
6:58
Speaker 2: to keep her sister company. They had zero enemies, So.
7:01
Speaker 1: Who targets a beloved, generous patriarch and two sweet grandmothers
7:05
Speaker 1: with that kind of ferocity.
7:07
Speaker 2: The detectives turned to the forensics, and we have to
7:10
Speaker 2: go back to that locked room puzzle from earlier.
7:12
Speaker 1: The ground floor was secure, the gate was locked.
7:15
Speaker 2: So how did the killers get in?
7:16
Speaker 1: The answer was actually right next to the bodies. Police
7:19
Speaker 1: found wooden ladders lying in the chicken coop area.
7:22
Speaker 2: Ladders that did not belong to the house, so.
7:25
Speaker 1: They came from the sky or well over the exterior wall.
7:29
Speaker 2: They scaled the walls, they bypassed the fortified ground floor, entirely,
7:33
Speaker 2: climbed all the way to the roof, and entered from
7:36
Speaker 2: the top down.
7:37
Speaker 1: It's literally a siege tactic.
7:39
Speaker 2: It implies they knew the layout. They knew the bottom
7:42
Speaker 2: doors would be locked, but the roof might be vulnerable.
7:45
Speaker 1: That suggests heavy planning. This was definitely not a crime
7:49
Speaker 1: of opportunity. But there's another clue found down in that
7:51
Speaker 1: ransacked bedroom that I think is the most disturbing piece
7:54
Speaker 1: of evidence in the whole case.
7:56
Speaker 2: The galabia.
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Speaker 1: Yes, for any of you listening who might not know,
7:59
Speaker 1: a galabia is a traditional Egyptian robe. It's loose, comfortable
8:04
Speaker 1: floor length, very common men's wear in the region.
8:07
Speaker 2: They found a violently blood stained galibia discarded on the
8:10
Speaker 2: bedroom floor, but it didn't belong to Hajj Aali.
8:13
Speaker 1: No, it was a completely different material, different size. It
8:15
Speaker 1: belonged to the killer.
8:17
Speaker 2: Let's unpack what that actually means for a second. Yeah,
8:20
Speaker 2: the killer is in the middle of committing a triple homicide.
8:23
Speaker 2: He is absolutely covered in blood, and instead of running
8:27
Speaker 2: in a panic.
8:28
Speaker 1: He changes clothes.
8:29
Speaker 2: He takes off his bloody robe, He opens the dead
8:32
Speaker 2: man's wardrobe, he calmly selects a clean robe belonging to
8:36
Speaker 2: haj Ali. He puts it on, and he walks out
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Speaker 2: of the house wearing his victim's clothes.
8:41
Speaker 1: That is just reptilian. It is so utterly cold.
8:46
Speaker 2: It's practical, sure, you don't want to walk down the
8:49
Speaker 2: street covered in blood, but it is psychologically devastating. It
8:53
Speaker 2: shows a total lack of panic.
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Speaker 1: It's almost an erasure of the victim, like I'm taking
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Speaker 1: your life, I'm taking your money, and now I'm taking
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Speaker 1: your clothes.
9:00
Speaker 2: That bizarre calmness perfectly aligns with the timeline the medical
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Speaker 2: examiner established. This didn't happen at midnight. The deaths occurred
9:08
Speaker 2: two days prior to the discovery, between ten and eleven
9:12
Speaker 2: in the morning in broad daylight, which brings us.
9:14
Speaker 1: To the most terrifying part of the whole theory. If
9:16
Speaker 1: they killed them at ten am, how did they climb
9:19
Speaker 1: those exterior ladders without being seen. The fields are full
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Speaker 1: of farmers at that time.
9:22
Speaker 2: They didn't climb at ten am.
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Speaker 1: No, they climb at night under the cover of darkness.
9:26
Speaker 1: They got up to that chicken coop and they just waited.
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Speaker 2: I cannot stop picturing this, hiding in a chicken coop,
9:32
Speaker 2: the smell, the dust, the cramp space.
9:35
Speaker 1: Sitting there in the pitch black, listening to the family
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Speaker 1: wake up downstairs, listening to them make breakfast, talk, live
9:43
Speaker 1: their lives, just waiting for them to come up to
9:45
Speaker 1: the roof to die.
9:46
Speaker 2: It is predatory behavior in its absolute purest form. It's
9:49
Speaker 2: an ambush.
9:50
Speaker 1: So we have the method, we have the sheer brutality.
9:53
Speaker 1: Now the police need a suspect, and in a village
9:56
Speaker 1: like Abu Kabir, people talk.
9:58
Speaker 2: They absolutely do.
10:00
Speaker 1: The detectives start pulling at these little threads and three
10:03
Speaker 1: specific clues start to weave together into a picture.
10:06
Speaker 2: Clue number one comes from the neighbors a pickup truck.
10:09
Speaker 2: A witness saw a truck the day before the murders
10:12
Speaker 2: carrying wooden ladders.
10:13
Speaker 1: The driver was a local man named Omar. Now, carrying
10:17
Speaker 1: ladders isn't a crime, but it's a very specific data point.
10:20
Speaker 2: Clue number two is the motorcycle gang. Witnesses saw a
10:23
Speaker 2: group of four men meeting in the agricultural fields a
10:26
Speaker 2: few days prior. They were huddled together looking incredibly secretive.
10:30
Speaker 1: And the group included Omar the driver right.
10:33
Speaker 2: It also included a relative of Hajali named Atef, a
10:36
Speaker 2: man named Mohammed, and a total stranger.
10:39
Speaker 1: And clue number three is the one that brings it
10:41
Speaker 1: all home. It focuses entirely on that relative, Atef.
10:44
Speaker 2: Atef is an in law, he is family and a
10:47
Speaker 2: witness saw Atef doing something very strange the night before
10:51
Speaker 2: the murders.
10:52
Speaker 1: Well.
10:53
Speaker 2: He was sitting by the irrigation canal directly across from
10:56
Speaker 2: Hajali's house, holding a fishing rod, fishing allegedly, but the
11:01
Speaker 2: witness noted that it was a bizarre time to fish
11:04
Speaker 2: and an even more bizarre place to fish. He wasn't
11:06
Speaker 2: catching anything, he was just watching.
11:08
Speaker 1: He was a lookout.
11:09
Speaker 2: That's the working theory. But here is where the story
11:12
Speaker 2: pivots hard into psychological thriller territory, because usually after a
11:16
Speaker 2: crime like this, the perpetrators vanish, they run to Cairo,
11:20
Speaker 2: they try to leave the country.
11:21
Speaker 1: But dat Tef didn't.
11:22
Speaker 2: He didn't go anywhere.
11:24
Speaker 1: What did he do?
11:24
Speaker 2: He walked right into the funeral.
11:26
Speaker 1: This is the part that just blows my mind.
11:28
Speaker 2: In Egypt, the funeral and the aza, the formal morning
11:31
Speaker 2: period are massive social obligations. The men sit in a
11:35
Speaker 2: large tent for three days, accepting condolences from the community,
11:39
Speaker 2: and Tef was there. He stood in the line, He
11:42
Speaker 2: shook hands, he drank the bitter coffee. He accepted the
11:45
Speaker 2: sympathy of the entire village for the brutal death of
11:48
Speaker 2: the man he helped kill.
11:50
Speaker 1: And he kept that act up for fifteen days. The
11:53
Speaker 1: sources detail how he even traveled to Ismaelia just to
11:56
Speaker 1: console the extended family.
11:58
Speaker 2: That takes a level of association that is genuinely hard
12:02
Speaker 2: to comprehend.
12:03
Speaker 1: It's sociopathic, yeah, but it's also arrogant, oh, highly arrogant.
12:08
Speaker 2: He thought he was so much smarter than everyone else.
12:10
Speaker 2: He thought, if he played the role of the grieving
12:12
Speaker 2: devastated relative hard enough, no one would ever look his way.
12:16
Speaker 1: But someone was looking at him, the older brother of
12:19
Speaker 1: the female victims.
12:21
Speaker 2: The brother had a gut feeling. He went straight to
12:23
Speaker 2: the police and said, you need to look at Atef.
12:25
Speaker 1: He is too calm, too calm.
12:27
Speaker 2: Everyone else is weeping, wailing, completely falling apart. A Tef
12:30
Speaker 2: is just present. He's wearing this mask of grief, but
12:33
Speaker 2: the edges are slipping, and.
12:34
Speaker 1: The brother knew Attef's background.
12:36
Speaker 2: Yes, Otef had a criminal record for fraud. He was
12:40
Speaker 2: known in the village as a manipulator, someone who would
12:43
Speaker 2: literally use his own son's illness to scam his neighbors
12:46
Speaker 2: out of money.
12:47
Speaker 1: And the tragic irony of all this, haj Ali was
12:50
Speaker 1: the one who usually helped him.
12:51
Speaker 2: Haj Ali was his biggest benefactor. He had given Autef
12:54
Speaker 2: money countless times to bail him out.
12:56
Speaker 1: So the police finally bring Autef in and I imagine
12:59
Speaker 1: the app and that interrogation room was intense. At first,
13:03
Speaker 1: he probably played the whole how dare you card?
13:05
Speaker 2: He denied absolutely everything. I'm family. I loved him. He
13:09
Speaker 2: was like a father to me, the whole script.
13:11
Speaker 1: But the police had the witness sightings. They asked him
13:13
Speaker 1: about the midnight fishing trip. They asked him about the
13:16
Speaker 1: secret meeting in the fields with the ladders.
13:18
Speaker 2: And you can see the story start to crack atev
13:20
Speaker 2: tries one last desperate lie. He admits he was there,
13:24
Speaker 2: but he claims he paid Hajjali a bribe to get
13:27
Speaker 2: him a government job. Wow, he says Ali took the
13:30
Speaker 2: money and didn't deliver, trying to frame it as just
13:33
Speaker 2: a dispute over a bad debt.
13:35
Speaker 1: He actually tried to smear the dead man's name just
13:38
Speaker 1: to save his own skin.
13:39
Speaker 2: He did, but it backfired instantly. Hajjly's reputation was completely
13:44
Speaker 2: bulletproof in that town. The police verified he never took bribes. Ever,
13:49
Speaker 2: the lie fell apart, and Attaf finally realized he was cornered,
13:52
Speaker 2: so he confessed. He confessed, And when the dominoes fall
13:55
Speaker 2: in a case like this, they fall fast.
13:57
Speaker 1: Atef names everyone Omar, the driver, Mohammed, the second lookout,
14:03
Speaker 1: and the.
14:03
Speaker 2: Stranger, a man named Ahmed, And what.
14:05
Speaker 1: Happens to Ahmed? Because this is a really dark footnote
14:08
Speaker 1: to the case.
14:09
Speaker 2: It is when the news of ATV's arrest hit the streets,
14:12
Speaker 2: Ahmed realized there was no escape. The police were coming.
14:15
Speaker 2: He swallowed agricultural pesticide pills and took his own life
14:19
Speaker 2: before they could even.
14:19
Speaker 1: Reach his door, which is in itself a confession. Absolutely
14:22
Speaker 1: So with Aateef, Omar and Mohammed in custody, the police
14:26
Speaker 1: can finally reconstruct the exact events of the night of
14:29
Speaker 1: the murder and Honestly, the reality of it is even
14:31
Speaker 1: worse than the initial theory. Let's walk through it.
14:34
Speaker 2: It was a calculated, patient siege. Attev was the mastermind.
14:38
Speaker 2: He knew hajj Ali had just sold a large piece
14:40
Speaker 2: of land.
14:41
Speaker 1: He knew exactly where the cash from that sale was
14:43
Speaker 1: kept in the house. It was pure unadulterated greed.
14:46
Speaker 2: And they had tried before three times, hadn't there Three
14:49
Speaker 2: separate times they had tried to break in and rob
14:51
Speaker 2: the house, but failed, once because the locks were too good,
14:55
Speaker 2: once because there were too many people around. They were
14:58
Speaker 2: just relentless.
14:59
Speaker 1: So on the final night, the night it actually happens.
15:03
Speaker 2: Omar transports the wooden ladders in his pickup truck. Under
15:06
Speaker 2: the cover of darkness. Ahmed, the hired hitman, climbs up
15:10
Speaker 2: the side of the house to the roof with a
15:12
Speaker 2: large knife.
15:12
Speaker 1: He slips into the chicken coop and.
15:14
Speaker 2: He just crouches down in the dark.
15:16
Speaker 1: And where's Atf?
15:17
Speaker 2: While this is happening, Atf takes his position by the canal.
15:21
Speaker 2: He holds his fishing rod. He watches the house where
15:24
Speaker 2: his cousin, his benefactor is sleeping peacefully. He watches the
15:28
Speaker 2: road He is the silent guardian of the murder.
15:31
Speaker 1: Morning comes, the sun rises over the fields. It hits
15:34
Speaker 1: ten am.
15:35
Speaker 2: Hajahnum comes up the stairs to feed the chickens, just
15:37
Speaker 2: a completely normal morning chore she's done a thousand times.
15:40
Speaker 1: And Ahmed attacks her immediately.
15:42
Speaker 2: Yes the noise of the struggle.
15:44
Speaker 1: Paja Fazia hears something from downstairs. She comes up to
15:48
Speaker 1: check on her sister, and she.
15:49
Speaker 2: Is killed before she can even scream.
15:52
Speaker 1: And finally, haj Ali he must.
15:54
Speaker 2: Have sensed the sudden silence upstairs or heard a thud.
15:58
Speaker 2: He climbs his own step. He walks right into the ambush.
16:03
Speaker 2: Three lives completely erased in less than thirty minutes.
16:07
Speaker 1: And then Ahmed goes downstairs.
16:09
Speaker 2: He casually ransacks the bedroom. He finds the cash from
16:13
Speaker 2: the land sale, exactly where Atif said it would be.
16:15
Speaker 2: He finds the family gold.
16:17
Speaker 1: He even cuts the earring directly from Hajja Fazzi's ear
16:20
Speaker 1: because he's in a hurry.
16:21
Speaker 2: He changes into hajj Ali's clean clothes, climbs out the
16:24
Speaker 2: second floor window, and just vanishes into the agricultural fields.
16:28
Speaker 1: They meet up. They split the bloody money, and Atef
16:30
Speaker 1: goes home to wash up and prepare for the funeral.
16:33
Speaker 2: There is an Egyptian proverb that was actually the title
16:35
Speaker 2: of some of the source material we looked at for this.
16:37
Speaker 2: It says, he kills the victim and walks in his funeral.
16:40
Speaker 1: Youtul al quatil wa yamshi fijana zatu exactly.
16:44
Speaker 2: Usually you use that phrase metaphorically, you know, for a
16:47
Speaker 2: politician who cuts funding for a hospital and then publicly
16:50
Speaker 2: laments the poor service, or a.
16:52
Speaker 1: Toxic friend who insults you behind your back and then
16:55
Speaker 1: acts incredibly sweet to your face.
16:56
Speaker 2: Right. But here it is horrifyingly literal.
17:00
Speaker 1: He killed the victim and he literally walked in his funeral.
17:03
Speaker 2: It is the ultimate betrayal. It's not just taking a life,
17:06
Speaker 2: it's mocking the profound grief of everyone left behind.
17:10
Speaker 1: It really forces you to look at the concept of
17:12
Speaker 1: trust differently. Hajali's greatest virtue, his defining characteristic, was his
17:18
Speaker 1: open door.
17:19
Speaker 2: He helped ATV. He trusted his family implicitly.
17:22
Speaker 1: But that trust, that close proximity, is exactly what ATF
17:26
Speaker 1: weaponized against him.
17:27
Speaker 2: That is the hardest lesson of this entire case. The
17:30
Speaker 2: locker room was completely secure against the outside world. The
17:33
Speaker 2: iron gate held strong, but the.
17:36
Speaker 1: Threat wasn't outside. It was the man sitting across the canal,
17:39
Speaker 1: the man who knew the daily rhythms of the house,
17:42
Speaker 1: the man they invited in for tea.
17:44
Speaker 2: Atf Omar and Mohammad eventually faced trial for their crimes. Justice,
17:48
Speaker 2: at least in the strict legal sense, was served.
17:51
Speaker 1: But for the people of Abu Kabir, I really don't
17:53
Speaker 1: think you ever go back to normal after something like
17:55
Speaker 1: that shatters your reality.
17:57
Speaker 2: No, it leaves a permanent skull on the community. It
18:01
Speaker 2: makes you look twice at the shadows in your own home.
18:04
Speaker 1: This was a heavy, deep dive, I know, but these
18:07
Speaker 1: stories really matter because they remind us of the massive,
18:10
Speaker 1: terrifying complexity of human nature, the capacity for incredible selfless
18:16
Speaker 1: generosity like haj Eli, and.
18:18
Speaker 2: The capacity for unthinkable, cold blooded betrayal like Atif.
18:23
Speaker 1: It's a reminder to value the good people in your
18:26
Speaker 1: life and maybe keep a much closer watch on the quiet.
18:28
Speaker 2: Ones, which leaves you with something to think about tonight.
18:32
Speaker 2: What if the person you're working the hardest to protect
18:34
Speaker 2: is actually the one just waiting for you to turn
18:36
Speaker 2: your back.
18:37
Speaker 1: That's a chilling thought.
18:38
Speaker 2: On that note, we are going to wrap it up.
18:40
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening, and thank you for letting us
18:42
Speaker 2: take you into that story. We will be back next
18:44
Speaker 2: time with another stack of papers and another deep dive.
18:47
Speaker 2: Stay safe out there,