CAIRO – Egyptian authorities investigating the murder of Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) journalist and foreign correspondent Nikolaos Katsikas in Cairo announced on February 8 the arrest of a food delivery courier as a suspect, according to a report in the Egyptian newspaper Ahram.

The paper cites a judicial source saying that the motive for the murder is believed to be robbery. Apparently, the suspect worked in a restaurant and knew the victim.

Egyptian authorities have now given permission for the burial of the journalist’s body. Katsikas, 56, was found dead with multiple stab wounds in his apartment in Cairo on Saturday.

A member of the Athens journalists’ union, he worked in Egypt as a correspondent for the ANA in Cairo since 2016, while he also worked for the public broadcaster ERT, the Cyprus News Agency, and Cyprus television channel RIK.

Commenting on February 8, government spokesperson Yiannis Economou expressed his condolences for the journalist’s death and said that Greek consular authorities are in contact with Egyptian authorities to investigate “this sorrowful incident.”

The investigation into the murder took a new turn as the authorities investigated the possibility that the crime was of a sexual nature.

The body of the journalist was found in his apartment in the Sheikh Zayed area of ​​the Egyptian capital where he lived with his sister, who was absent at the time of the murder.

Police arrested a food distributor, who confirmed during interrogation that he first met the victim at the restaurant where he worked. According to what the detainee said, he exchanged his phone with the journalist and the latter called him and invited him to his apartment a few days after they met, as broadcast by elrai.net.

In his confession, the accused says that when he went to Katsikas’ apartment, he asked him what his financial situation was. When the distributor replied that he was facing financial difficulties, the victim allegedly offered to have an affair in exchange for money.

The defendant told investigators that he consented and had sex twice, but the victim refused to give him the money he had been promised the first time. The second time they fought and the distributor attacked the journalist, hit him, threw him on the floor and stabbed him until he expired, according to the publication.

The distributor confessed that after Katsikas’ death he snatched 269 euros, three mobile phones, and some other items from the victim and then fled.

The Cairo Prosecutor’s Office stated that the body of the murdered journalist was handed over to the Greek embassy after the completion of the autopsy.

The news of the death became known last Sunday. The Egyptian media had previously reported that it was a murder motivated by robbery and shortly thereafter the above details about the nature of the crime became known. Katsikas had been missing for days.

Material from the ANA was used in this report.