killing two USF students<\/a> pleaded not guilty Monday during his arraignment in Hillsborough County court.<\/p>\nHisham Abugharbieh, 27, is charged with stabbing Nahida Bristy and Zamil Limon to death on April 16 at the apartment he shared with Limon. He faces a seven-count indictment, including two counts of first-degree premeditated murder.<\/p>\n
During Monday\u2019s hearing, Abugharbieh waived his appearance and did not appear in court. His attorneys entered the not guilty pleas on his behalf.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll waive formal reading and plead not guilty,\u201d his defense attorney said in court.<\/p>\n
Abugharbieh has not appeared in person in court since his arrest, though he previously appeared by video from jail during his first appearance hearing.<\/p>\n
A judge also set a tentative trial schedule, with jury selection currently expected to begin Nov. 3, 2027. The judge noted the date is flexible and can be adjusted as the case progresses.<\/p>\n
Abugharbieh waived his right to a speedy trial. State Attorney Suzy Lopez said both the prosecution and defense will need significant time to review the evidence in the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are volumes, reams, there\u2019s a couple of terabytes of discovery that both sides need to through so the next steps now are just digging into the discovery,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, a move supported by the families of Limon and Bristy.<\/p>\n
Lopez said her office has remained in contact with the victims\u2019 families in Bangladesh throughout the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe beauty of Zoom is I\u2019ve been able to speak with them a couple of times and so we keep in touch wit them,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n
Abugharbieh\u2019s next court hearing is scheduled for Dec. 10 for a status conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hisham Abugharbieh was arraigned Monday in the deaths of Nahida Bristy and Zamil Limon. Jury selection is tentatively…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-275663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}