Egypt’s Heliopolis prosecution on Thursday referred to urgent criminal trial a man accused in October of slashing the face of Somaya Tarek, a young woman commonly known in the media as “the mall girl,” Al-Ahram Arabic website reported.
The case dates back to a widely publicized incident in October 2015 when the man, identified as Hany A, 28, was sentenced to one month in prison over charges of sexual harassment against Tarek.
At the time, Tarek went public with her accusation, appearing on a number of TV shows saying that the man attacked and sexually harassed her. A leaked security video from the mall showed a man violently slapping Tarek in the face twice following a brief argument.
Hany denied he sexually harassed the woman, saying she caught his attention when she was speaking loudly on her cellular phone and he was simply looking at her naturally.
He claimed Tarek began insulting him because she thought he was harassing her.
Hany was later released on bail, but then this past October Tarek re-appeared on several TV shows with a large wound on her face, publicly accusing him of attacking her with a knife in the Korba district of Heliopolis.
Tarek said that the second attack was retribution for her raising the 2015 case.
Following the slashing incident, police arrested Hany a second time. Investigators said he has confessed to attacking the girl with a knife.