Johannesburg – Egyptian police have arrested a man suspected of slashing the throat of a liquor shop owner in Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, only 24 hours after the murder.
The suspect was cornered in a building in the vicinity of Al Montazah police station where he was hiding after the attack.
The arrest came after police reviewed surveillance camera footage taken by neighbouring shops in Khaled Bin Al Waleed street, one of Alexandria's busiest commercial streets, Egypt's Al Ahram newspaper reported on Wednesday.
A video of the attack showed a bearded man, wearing a yellow coat and dressed like a Salafist, slashing the throat of the store owner twice as the man smoked a hookah in front of his store.
The victim, who was a Coptic Christian and had run the store for 40 years, died immediately after the attack.
The victim's son, Tony Youssef Lamei, said in a phone interview with Mehwar TV on Tuesday that he was proud of his father's job, adding that he and his brothers would continue running his business.
Investigators said they were trying to determine the reasons and motives behind the crime which may have been motivated by sectarianism.