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Two Infamous sisters who committed many terrible crimes in early 20th Century Alexandria
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Brief Case is a True Crime Channel focusing on old or lost cases that have been forgotten to history. If you have any recommendations for future cases that you would like to bring to light, feel free to reach out to me to: briefcaseuk@gmail.com
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#RayaSakina #BriefCase #TrueCrime
Please remember to subscribe and hit the bell icon as well as leave a like and a comment for more videos every week!
Brief Case is a True Crime Channel focusing on old or lost cases that have been forgotten to history. If you have any recommendations for future cases that you would like to bring to light, feel free to reach out to me to: briefcaseuk@gmail.com
Music by CO.AG Music - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwZB4l43iTw&t=105s
Music by Myuu -https://www.youtube.com/user/myuuji
Music by Kevin Macleod - https://incompetech.com
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
#RayaSakina #BriefCase #TrueCrime
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NewsTranscript
00:07Today we are going to the early 20th century.
00:12So sit back as we go to Egypt.
00:18Raya and Sakina Ali Hammam were born in a remote village in Upper Egypt.
00:24Raya was the eldest, having been born in 1875, and her sister was born ten years later in 1885.
00:33They lived with their mother and brother, as at a very early age they had been abandoned by their father.
00:39Life was not easy for the family, they lived in poor conditions,
00:44and Raya and Sakina's mother would usually send her two daughters out to sell roasted vegetables in order to try
00:50and make a little money.
00:51Their mother was known to be quite an eccentric lady, who seemed to show very little affection towards her children.
00:59The family moved around quite a bit, but they eventually settled in the village of Khafa Al Zayat, which was
01:08in the Nile Delta.
01:09The sisters stayed in the village until they were married, but married life didn't improve their conditions.
01:16Sakina and her husband divorced, and she left the village and went to live in the large city of Tanta,
01:23which is 95 kilometers north of Egypt's capital city, Cairo.
01:28Here she met Mohammed Abdelal, and together they went to live in Alexandria, settling in the Azarita district.
01:36Raya and her husband Hasbollah stayed in the village, but Hasbollah was a thief and a smuggler, and was often
01:43in trouble with the authorities.
01:44So when the opportunity arose, they left and went to Alexandria to live with Sakina and her husband.
01:53In 1913, Alexandria was known as a very cosmopolitan city located on the banks of the Mediterranean Sea.
02:01Its boulevards, cafes and shops rivaled the great French coastal cities of Nice and Marseille.
02:08It was a home to many rich families, and was a very important trading post for the country.
02:14Things, however, started to decline in 1914, following the outbreak of World War One.
02:21The Egyptian economy inevitably suffered, and as it became harder to export cotton,
02:26often the large cotton manufacturers started to lay off their staff.
02:31This greatly affected Raya and Sakina, as both their husbands worked in the cotton industry.
02:37They were now left with no one working in their house, and unable to generate an income.
02:43The two sisters, however, were very resourceful.
02:46They came up with the idea of opening a house where people could come to indulge their vices.
02:52They opened their first one close to the British army base, and it became known locally as the camp.
02:58Business was good, and as well as being frequently visited by the soldiers,
03:03it was also used by local businessmen, as well as married men and women who wanted some time away from
03:10their spouses.
03:11As more British soldiers arrived in the city, the sisters opened four additional establishments in different parts of Alexandria.
03:19It was presumed that prostitutes operated from each of them, but prostitution was illegal in Egypt,
03:26and the sisters always denied that they offered any such service, insisting that they prohibited any sort of immoral behaviour.
03:34However, to avoid problems with the neighbours or other people who disapproved of what they were doing,
03:39they employed the protection services of two local men, named Arabi and Abdul Razik.
03:46For the first time in their lives, they were prospering.
03:50But in 1918, World War I ended, and many British troops left Egypt.
03:56The sisters' fortune started to change.
03:59Egypt was a British protectorate, but the country pushed for independence.
04:03In March 1919, there was a popular uprising against the British, which resulted in strikes and a general curfew.
04:13The economy started to suffer, as did the business that Rea and Sakina had spent the previous five years building
04:20up.
04:21Suddenly, they found themselves in a very poor economic situation, and resorted to stealing food just to get by.
04:28As Bala was caught, and sent to jail. Then Rea was caught, and spent six months in prison.
04:36Rea and Sakina had a hard upbringing, and after experiencing a more prosperous lifestyle,
04:42they did not want to return to the hand-to-mouth existence, for they had tried so hard to escape
04:49from.
04:49They had seen how the wealthy families lived in Alexandria, and wanted to experience that way of life.
04:55But in order to achieve it, they would need a way of making money.
04:59And with the country in an economic depression, that was not going to be easy.
05:07At the time, Alexandria's elite, especially the women, did not deposit their money in a bank.
05:14Instead, they would buy gold jewelry and wear it, mainly on their neck, arms and ankles.
05:21Rea and Sakina came up with a plan to rob the jewelry from the unsuspecting ladies,
05:27and then sell the items to a friendly jeweler.
05:30They decided that the best place to find a suitably jewel-laden lady would be at the market.
05:37So together they would go there, and when they had identified the woman wearing the most jewelry,
05:42Rea would approach her, and try to strike up a pleasant conversation.
05:46If she found her to be responsive, she would quietly tell her,
05:50that she had come into the possession of some items from the customs zone,
05:54which she had for sale at a very cheap price.
05:57She would then invite the lady back to her house,
06:00which was located in the Leban neighborhood of the city.
06:03Some of the ladies that Rea would talk to were already acquainted with the sisters,
06:08and some even considered them to be friends.
06:12Once they were inside the house, Rea and Sakina would offer the lady alcohol,
06:17and they would continue their conversation.
06:19Then, when the victim was a little drunk,
06:22the sisters' husbands would enter the room,
06:24and the four of them would suffocate the unsuspecting victim.
06:27They would then take all the jewelry and bury the body underneath their house.
06:33Between November 1919 and November 1920,
06:38worried residents of the city would continually contact the police,
06:42asking them to investigate the disappearance of their missing relatives.
06:46It was hard for the police, as although the women were missing,
06:50there were no bodies, so the women could just have gone away.
06:53But whenever they investigated the case,
06:55witnesses would often remember that at the time of the disappearance,
07:00they were seen in the company of Rea and Sakina.
07:04Eventually, the police arrested the sisters,
07:07and took them to the station for questioning.
07:09But with no evidence,
07:11and the sisters denying any knowledge of the missing women,
07:14they had no option other to let them go.
07:19In December 1920,
07:21a police officer walking along the streets of Alexandria,
07:25discovered human remains on the side of the road,
07:28near to the sisters' home.
07:29The dismembered body was unrecognizable,
07:32except for its long braided black hair.
07:35In the same month,
07:36a landlord of a house that was previously rented by Sakina,
07:40decided to install water pipes,
07:42and while waiting for the plumber to arrive,
07:45he started digging.
07:46Suddenly, he was overwhelmed by a powerful smell,
07:49so he reached into the hole,
07:51trying to find out if anything was in it.
07:53He soon realized that the hole contained human remains.
07:58The police were called,
07:59and when carefully removing the tiles from the floor,
08:02they unearthed two decomposing bodies.
08:05They then paid a visit to Raya's house,
08:08which had a powerful smell of incense.
08:11When the police officer asked her why she continually burned incense,
08:15she said that it was because she still entertained customers there,
08:18and it covered the smell of alcohol and smoke.
08:22Her answer made the officer suspicious,
08:25and when he looked further around the house,
08:28he noticed that some of the floor tiles had recently been replaced.
08:33He went back to the police station,
08:35and spoke to his superior officer.
08:37Soon after,
08:38a team of law enforcement officials returned to the house.
08:42They removed the newest tiles from the floor,
08:45and they were all very soon overcome
08:47by the unmistakable smell of decomposing bodies.
08:50They found the remains of three women.
08:53The sisters and their husbands were arrested.
08:56They were taken to the police station and interrogated.
08:59The younger of the two sisters, Sakina,
09:02continually denied that she knew anything about the bodies
09:05under the floor of the house.
09:07Raya, however, soon confessed.
09:09The police commissioner then ordered that all of the houses
09:13that Raya and Sakina had previously rented and lived in be searched.
09:17They discovered a total of 17 bodies hidden underneath the floors.
09:23Ten were later identified,
09:24but the remaining seven were considered unidentifiable.
09:28The investigation continued,
09:30and the sisters blamed each other for their dark deeds.
09:34But the police found a very credible witness
09:37in Raya's young daughter named Badia.
09:40She told them how she often watched her parents commit the crimes
09:44through a small crack in the wall at her home.
09:47Raya and Sakina,
09:49and their husbands,
09:49Hezbollah and Abdalal,
09:51were all charged with murder.
09:53The news of the crime soon spread throughout Egypt.
09:57Crime was by no means rare in the country at the time,
10:00but this one seemed to exceed anything that had previously been reported.
10:04Before the trial,
10:06the newspapers filled their pages with opinions
10:08as to whether a woman would or should be condemned to death,
10:13as no woman had previously received a death penalty in Egypt.
10:16The courts, however, confirmed that a woman found guilty of such a ghastly crime
10:21could indeed be sentenced to death.
10:24The trial started on May 10, 1921.
10:28The prosecution outlined the crimes to the courts
10:31and produced many witnesses
10:32who had seen the victims with the sisters shortly before they disappeared.
10:37The defense's case was very weak,
10:39and six of their nine witnesses decided against testifying.
10:43The defense of the sisters came down to both of them blaming each other.
10:48After three days of testimony,
10:50the trial ended,
10:51and the sisters and their husbands were all found guilty of murder,
10:55and the court retired to consider the sentence.
10:58Four days later,
11:00on the 16th of May,
11:01the chief magistrate sentenced Raya and Sakina,
11:05along with their husbands,
11:07to death.
11:08He gave the same sentence to the sisters' two bodyguards,
11:11Urabi and Abdul Razik.
11:14The jeweler who had purchased all of the stolen jewelry
11:17was sentenced to five years in prison.
11:19On December 21, 1921,
11:24Raya and Sakina were hanged
11:26to become the first women
11:28to be executed by the state in Egypt.
11:31The following day,
11:33their husbands met the same fate.
11:36Death did not end there, however,
11:38as when Raya was arrested,
11:40the authorities placed her daughter Badia in a hostel.
11:44Three years later,
11:46a fire broke out,
11:47and Badia tragically died.
11:49Many believe that the fire was started by a relative
11:53of one of her sister's victims.
11:57Hello everyone,
11:59and thank you so much for listening.
12:00As per usual,
12:02please leave any comments or feedback you may have,
12:05and I will see you in the next
12:07brief case.
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