DUBAI // The mother of Lebanese singer Suzan Tamim has been unable to get out of bed since her daughter's murder. Thuraya al Zaref was too ill to attend her daughter's funeral on Monday and could not even get out of bed to receive close family and friends who came to pay their respects at a small memorial service held at her house, said Clara al Rumaily, Tamim's lawyer. "She is traumatised and completely broken down. She can't get out of bed. She is on medication and being injected daily," she said.
Miss Rumaily also said that, despite media reports saying her mother had visited Tamim, who was 31, in Dubai days before her murder, Mrs Zaref had not seen her daughter in many months. On a visit to London last September, Miss Rumaily said she and Mrs Zaref were prevented from seeing Tamim by Riyadh al Azzawi, a British kick-boxer of Iraqi origin, who last week claimed he was Tamim's husband. Miss Rumaily, who last spoke to Tamim about a month before she was stabbed to death in her Jumeirah Beach flat, said that she was unaware of the marriage. "He [Mr Azzawi] told her mother and I that he was her bodyguard. From what he told us, he was someone who was looking after her. He knew where she lived but they did not live together," she said.
A British man is in Dubai Police custody in connection with her murder. @Email:rabubaker@thenational.ae