“It looks like a courtesy verdict rather than a just one,” they told Arab News.

The Cairo Appeals Court erupted into chaos after judge Adel Abdel-Salam Gomaa read his verdict, because it was announced before the defense lawyers made their pleas, and before a final verdict in the case was expected.

Mustafa, a former member of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and a member of the Upper House of Parliament, was charged with orchestrating the brutal murder of Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim. She was found dead with her throat slit in her Dubai apartment in July 2008.

The reduced sentence is likely to spark new accusations of political influence. Muhsin Suleiman, an Egyptian working in the printing field, said the sentence was lighter than expected and feared it might be further reduced.

Ali Hatem, another Egyptian who has been working in the Kingdom for the last 15 years, said he hoped the Cairo court would endorse the death sentence or at least give 25 years in jail considering the enormity of the crime.

Abdussattar Mahmoud, a media person, said he feared Mustafa would be released soon considering the years he has already spent behind bars. The court may allow him to get out under any pretext including health reasons.

Financial consultant Raafat Badawi had a different opinion. He said the judge gave his verdict on the basis of evidence and witnesses’ statements. “It is the duty of the plaintiff now to prove otherwise by providing evidence,” he added. “It's just a message to defense lawyers, as if the judge is saying: you are superfluous,” said Essam Sultan, a prominent opposition lawyer who found the new sentence very unusual. “The 15-year imprisonment as a penalty for conspiring to murder doesn't exist in the Egyptian law,” he said, adding that the charge normally has only two penalties, death or a life sentence.

“This is the result of the marriage between the establishment and the wealthy,” said Abdullah El-Sinnawi, the editor of the opposition Al-Arabi newspaper.

The Mustafa-Tamim affair began in 2004, when the two met at a Red Sea resort, according to transcripts of Mustafa's interrogation. Tamim, who rose to stardom in the late 1990s, had sought his help to get a divorce from her husband, according to reports. During interrogations, Mustafa said he broke up with Tamim after his mother opposed the couple’s marriage plan. Mustafa was originally sentenced to death in May 2009 after being convicted of paying a retired Egyptian police officer $2 million to kill Tamim. The court in March overturned the conviction on procedural grounds and ordered a retrial.

The sentence for the man actually convicted of killing Tamim, Mohsen El-Sukkary, was also reduced in the retrial to just life in prison, which is 25 years under the Egyptian penal code. He was also given three years for weapons possession.

The sentences can still be appealed by the defendants, the prosecutor or Tamim’s family. In May, it was widely reported in the Arab media that Mustafa had agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to Tamim’s family.

Dubai investigators claimed El-Sukkary followed Tamim to her apartment in the swanky Dubai Marina complex and entered using an ID of the management company from which she had recently bought her place. Blood-soaked clothes were found dumped outside the building.

El-Sukkary was arrested in August 2008 in Egypt. Mustafa was arrested in September of the same year.

— With input from agencies