Egypt: slain Swiss couple found buried in garden

Egyptian police found a murdered Swiss couple buried in the garden of their house in the Red Sea resort town of Hurghada, a security official told AFP.

Published: 3 January 2014 09:06 CET
Updated: 3 January 2014 11:50 CET

Egypt: slain Swiss couple found buried in garden

The bodies were found in a hole in the garden of the villa. Photo: AFP

The official said preliminary investigations revealed the two Swiss citizens, a man and his wife, were killed by the house's guard and two of his friends who wanted to rob the couple.

He did not reveal the identity of the two killed, but said the couple had been living in Hurghada for a while and went missing a week ago.

The corpses were transferred to Hurghada's general hospital. A local official at the hospital told AFP "the two corpses arrived at the morgue in a complete state of putrescence".

Earlier on Friday, the Swiss foreign ministry confirmed the death of two Swiss citizens in Egypt, which had been reported by the Swiss German television news programme 10vor10 on Thursday night.

The Blick tabloid said the couple were both aged 64.

Located on Egypt's eastern coast, the resort city of Hurghada is a prime tourist destination.

It has been so far spared the turmoil and violence following the popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

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Two victims suffered serious wounds, police said. The attacker was also in hospital being treated for injuries that investigators said were self-inflicted.

The man was “believed to be of foreign origin” and was aged about 40, police said in a statement which added that he was thought to have acted alone.

All of the injured remained hospitalised late Wednesday.

Armed with “sharpened or pointed” metal weapons, the man first lashed out at a passer-by at the railway station in the town of 12,000 people in the Aargau canton, about 60 kilometres (38 miles) west of Zurich, police said.

He then wounded several people seemingly at random before entering a house, police added.

Among those attacked were two teachers from the Zofingen cantonal school, the institution’s director, Patrick Strossler, told 20minuten.ch news website.

The Aargauer Zeitung newspaper quoted one man as saying his pregnant wife had been among those attacked. She was cut in the face but her life was not threatened.

After two hours of negotiations with a specialised team, the man was arrested in the house, police said. The suspect had injured himself and was taken to hospital, said Bernhard Graser, a police spokesman.

Graser told the Zofinger Tagblatt newspaper that the attacker’s injuries were self-inflicted.

Police have called for witnesses to share video or photos that may be useful for their investigation.

Images shown by Aargauer Zeitung showed a large deployment of police and emergency vehicles. The security forces had assault rifles and bullet-proof vests.

A police helicopter landed on a nearby sports field, causing the local youth football team to cut short a training session, the newspaper said.