Egypt hotel room next door to British couple fumigated day before their deaths – inquest
A hotel room in Egypt where a British couple died was next door to a room that had been sprayed with chemicals to kill bed bugs only hours before their deaths, an inquest has heard.
John Cooper, 69, and his wife Susan, 63, from Burnley in Lancashire died on 21 August 2018 in the Egyptian resort of Hurghada at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel.
The couple died from neither carbon monoxide nor food poisoning, according to an earlier report, which added they could have been caused by possible exposure to an “infectious biological agent or toxic chemicals”.
On the first day of a two-day inquest hearing in Burnley, a German tourist said in a statement he reported a bed bug infestation in the room next door – which had a locked, adjoining door.
It was treated the next day with Lambda, a pesticide.
The Coopers’ daughter, Kelly Ormerod, a HMRC civil servant, said her parents were fit and healthy for their age and had been enjoying a “brilliant” holiday with her, their three grandchildren, and family friends.
Her mother, who was a cashier at Thomas Cook, had visited the same hotel in April that year, describing it as “fabulous”, and wanted to take the whole family back.
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On the evening of 20 August, they all went to the hotel’s restaurant and a bar, before heading in for the night.
Ms Ormerod’s daughter, Molly, who was then aged 12, was staying on a single bed in the Coopers’ room, which she said had a “yeasty smell”. At 1am, Mr Cooper rang to say she was feeling unwell and took her back to her mother’s room upstairs.
Mr and Mrs Cooper were not at breakfast the next day, and Ms Ormerod discovered they were seriously ill, saying her father came to the door and said “I really don’t feel well” while retching.
She told the hearing her mother was in bed, “groaning”, with vomit in her hair and around the room, where she noticed a strange “heavy” smell.
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May 2019: ‘No compassion or humanity’ shown by Egypt
Two doctors were summoned, but Ms Ormerod said they were in “panic mode”, as her parents appeared to get worse and her father struggled to breathe.
Ms Ormerod added: “His eyes kind of… a glazed, staring look.”
Mr Cooper was declared dead on the hotel room floor, while Mrs Cooper was taken to a clinic at the hotel where she was said to be “super agitated” and delirious, the inquest was told.
Mrs Cooper was taken to hospital in an ambulance but died at 4.12pm.
Both were repatriated to the UK in sealed, zinc-lined coffins.
A statement from Dominik Bibi, from Germany, who arrived in the early hours of 20 August, said his mother-in-law was booked to stay in room 5106 – next door to the Coopers.
His statement added: “On entering I immediately noticed a funny smell, like that of mould or damp.
“There was a lot of bed bugs in the bed and under it.”
He added a cleaner and manager came and apologised, while his mother-in-law took his room further down the corridor.
Mr Bibi said around lunchtime he was outside her room when he saw three men, one of whom was holding a pesticide canister he assumed was being used to get rid of bedbugs.
He added after around five or 10 minutes they left the room, and used masking tape to seal the room.
“I would not say the job was very professional,” Mr Bibi’s statement continued, adding the air conditioning at the hotel was not working that day, and a cleaner told the family work was being done on the system.
He also said he and other family members were unwell, but he expected that during a holiday in Egypt.
The inquest continues.
World
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi confirmed dead in helicopter crash after charred wreckage found
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has died after the helicopter he was travelling in crashed in a mountainous area of northwest Iran.
Rescuers found the burned remains of the aircraft on Monday morning after the president and his foreign minister had been missing for more than 12 hours.
“President Raisi, the foreign minister and all the passengers in the helicopter were killed in the crash,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters, asking not to be named.
Live updates – Iranian president killed in crash
Iran‘s Mehr news agency reported “all passengers of the helicopter carrying the Iranian president and foreign minister were martyred”.
State TV said images showed it had smashed into a mountain peak, although there was no official word on the cause of the crash.
“President Raisi’s helicopter was completely burned in the crash… unfortunately, all passengers are feared dead,” an official told Reuters.
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President of Iran killed in crash
The crash happened in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province
As the sun rose, rescuers saw the wreckage from around 1.25 miles, the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, told state media.
Iranian news agency IRNA said the president was flying in an American-made Bell 212 helicopter.
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Iranian TV showed the president on the helicopter during a trip to Azerbaijan
TV pictures from Sunday showed thick fog at the search site. Pic: IRNA
Mr Raisi, 63, who was seen as a frontrunner to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Iran’s supreme leader, was travelling back from Azerbaijan where he had opened a dam with the country’s president.
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, also died in the crash.
The governor of East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards were also said to have been on board when the helicopter crashed in fog on Sunday.
Iranian media initially described it as a “hard landing”.
The chief of staff of Iran’s army had ordered all military resources and the Revolutionary Guard to be deployed in the search, which had been hampered by bad weather.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to react to the news of Mr Raisi’s death.
“India stands with Iran in this time of sorrow,” he said in a post on X.
A helicopter carrying Iran’s president crashed during bad weather on Sunday.
But who is Ebrahim Raisi – a leader who faces sanctions from the US and other nations over his involvement in the mass execution of prisoners in 1988.
The president, 63, who was travelling alongside the foreign minister and two other key Iranian figures when their helicopter crashed, had been travelling across the far northwest of Iran following a visit to Azerbaijan.
Follow live: Rescuers search for president after helicopter crash
Mr Raisi is a hardliner and former head of the judiciary who some have suggested could one day replace Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Because of his part in the sentencing of thousands of prisoners of conscience to death back in the 1980s, he was nicknamed the Butcher of Tehran as he sat on the so-called Death Panel, for which he was then sanctioned by the US.
Raisi and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday. Pic: Reuters
Both a revered and a controversial figure, Mr Raisi supported the country’s security services as they cracked down on all dissent, including in the aftermath of the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini – the woman who died after she was arrested for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly – and the nationwide protests that followed.
The months-long security crackdown killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.
People light a fire during a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini in Tehran, 2022. Pic: Reuters
In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Ms Amini’s death after her arrest for not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.
The president is seen as a frontrunner to replace Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (pictured). Pic: Reuters
The president also supported Iran’s unprecedented decision in April to launch a drone and missile attack on Israel amid its war with Hamas, the ruling militant group in Gaza responsible for the 7 October attacks which saw 1,200 people killed in southern Israel.
Involvement in mass executions
Mr Raisi is sanctioned by the US in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.
Under the president, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections.
Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine and has continued arming proxy groups in the Middle East, such as Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
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He successfully ran for the presidency back in August 2021 in a vote that got the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history as all of his potentially prominent opponents were barred from running under Iran’s vetting system.
A presidency run in 2017 saw him lose to Hassan Rouhani, the relatively moderate cleric who as president reached Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
‘Very involved in anything’
Alistair Bunkall, Sky News’s Middle East correspondent, said the president is “a major figure in Iranian political and religious society” but “he’s not universally popular by any means” as his administration has seen a series of protests in the past few years against his and the government’s “hardline attitude”.
Mr Raisi is nonetheless “considered one of the two frontrunners to potentially take over” the Iranian regime when the current supreme leader dies, Bunkall said.
He added the president would have been “instrumental” in many of Iran’s activities in the region as he “would’ve been very involved in anything particularly what has been happening in Israel and the surrounding areas like Lebanon and Gaza and the Houthis over the last seven and a bit months”.
World
Iran president helicopter crash: The ‘butcher of Tehran’ has a fearsome reputation – and many will be fearing instability
Ebrahim Raisi has been one of Iran’s hardest of hardliners, a fanatical and absolute believer in the Iranian revolution and its mission.
If he has died on a mountainside in the north of the country, as looks increasingly likely, it will be a major moment for the country and the region.
It will remove from the Middle East one of its toughest most uncompromising players.
Follow live: Rescuers search for president after helicopter crash
A man who launched the first direct attack on Israel in his country’s history and a hardliner on whose watch hundreds of Iranians have been killed in the brutal repression of recent women-led protests, Mr Raisi has a huge amount of blood on his hands.
The president is seen as a frontrunner to replace Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (pictured). Pic: Reuters
His fearsome reputation goes back to the 1980s – a period that earned him the dubious soubriquet the Butcher of Tehran.
He sat on the so-called Death Panel of four Islamic judges who sentenced thousands of Iranian prisoners of conscience to their deaths during the purge of 1988.
Mr Raisi has personally been involved in two of the darkest periods of Iranian repression. And he was seen as one of the favourite contenders to replace the elderly and ailing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
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His accession to that role would have guaranteed years more of the same… and years more meddling abroad.
Raisi and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday. Pic: Reuters
With Mr Raisi as president, Iran has engaged in more and more adventurous interventions beyond its borders.
With him in charge Iran has helped Houthis menace international shipping in the Red Sea; helped Hezbollah engage Israel in a seven-month duel over its northern border; aided militia in Iraq to attack, and in some cases kill, American soldiers; and helped Hamas fight its own war against the Jewish state.
After two years of unrest, economic failure and stuttering recovery from the pandemic, Iran is divided and weakened.
Its government has lost much of its credibility and support because of the atrocities it has meted out to its women.
Few outside the regime and its ranks of ardent followers will mourn a man who has overseen the death, incarceration or torture of so many.
Iranians may dare yearn for less repressive times without him. Outsiders will hope for a less troublesome Iran.
Read more:
Who is Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi?
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
But there are plenty more where he came from and the Supreme Leader is likely to find another hardliner to replace him.
The fear will be of instability in the run-up to elections. The government has been undermined by recent events, its Supreme Leader is unwell.
If Mr Raisi is dead, his government will try to secure the succession as quickly and smoothly as it can.
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