TAMPA, Fla — The State Attorney's Office intends to seek the death penalty against Hisham Saleh Abugharbieh, the suspect charged with murder in the deaths of two USF graduate students.
The state attorney said they identified the necessary aggravating factors under Florida law to seek the death penalty.
The update comes just one day after prosecutors presented the case against the suspect in the murders of two University of South Florida graduate students to a grand jury.
Abugharbieh was indicted on seven counts: two counts of first-degree murder with a weapon (premeditated) in the deaths of Nahida Sultana Bristy and Zamil Ahamed Limon; one count of tampering with physical evidence relating to a capital felony; two counts of unlawfully holding or moving a dead human body in unapproved conditions; and two counts of failing to report a death to the medical examiner or law enforcement with intent to conceal.
Abugharbieh's next hearing is May 18 at 9 a.m.
Bristy and Limon, both international students, disappeared in April. Limon's body was found and identified on April 24.
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Bristy's body was found on April 26, but was not identified until April 30.
State Attorney Suzy Lopez had set May 7 as the goal to bring the case before a grand jury.
To better understand what that process looks like and why Lopez made that decision, Tampa Bay 28 Reporter Blake Phillips sat down with Janae Thomas, who prosecuted cases for Hillsborough County for eight years.
Thomas said the grand jury's role is not to determine guilt but to decide whether there is enough evidence to bring charges against the suspect.
"To go to the grand jury, it's just to determine whether they have enough evidence, really, to formally charge the individual. And in a case like this, it's highly circumstantial," Thomas said.
She pointed to several factors that make the grand jury step especially important in this case.
"The body was found in a totally different location. We're really relying a lot on his social media searches. We're really relying on the relationship he had with his roommate. All of those things are reasons why you would want to make sure a jury is going to confirm your thoughts on whether you have enough evidence to charge him," Thomas said.
Despite the circumstantial nature of the evidence, Thomas said she views the prosecution's position as strong.
"I think that the prosecution's case is one of the stronger ones, despite it being a circumstantial case with no confession," Thomas said.
She said one detail in particular stands out.
"One of the biggest things that I would harp on as a prosecutor is when the police went to arrest the defendant, they had to bring in the SWAT team. They had to basically pull him out of his house in order to arrest him. I would argue that's consciousness of guilt," Thomas said.
Thomas also weighed in on the timeline families and the public can expect, particularly if the death penalty is pursued. The family had previously sent a list of requests, one of the biggest being a call for swift justice.
"I don't think that this is going to be a case of swift justice, a lot because of the AI evidence that's going to be introduced. Sometimes subpoenas for those records can take forever," Thomas said.
She added that death penalty cases carry an especially lengthy road, even after a conviction.
"On death penalty cases, even if you win at trial and the person is sentenced to death, it automatically takes like 10 years because you have to appeal it. They get automatic appeals before you can seek it. And so if swift justice is what they want to see, and they mean sentencing, then it's a lot faster to go through like a life sentence than it is to do something like the death penalty," Thomas said.
Lopez has said the prosecution will decide whether to pursue the death penalty after the evidence is brought to the grand jury.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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