CAIRO, Egypt - "Pop singer brutally murdered by a paid assassin."
 
A headline that can cause a media frenzy - and that's exactly what happened in Egypt and throughout the Middle East.

Egyptians have been captivated with the murder of singer Suzanne Tamim, pictured here in a photoshoot.

 
Egyptians are captivated with the murder of Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim. And the fascination grew when Egyptian billionaire businessman Hisham Talaat Mustafa was accused of paying a former police officer, Mohsen Al-Sukkary, to kill her.  
 
In our own Cairo offices we would dissect the details with CNN's office manager, Housam Ahmed, who could read the Arabic papers and share the sordid details.  
 
The rumors were flying from publication to publication: "She dumped him;"  "He paid for her plastic surgery;"  "He was angry she fell in love with another."
 
And it was hard not to speculate over the various theories of what really may have happened.
 
Housam told us that his wife and her friends can't get enough of the story and that it is the topic of conversation among many housewives and dinner tables throughout the country.  
 
But now, they are cut off from their media fix.
 
The head judge in the trial has placed a gag order on any reporting of the trial, stating that the sensationalism of some media organizations were affecting the proceedings, but yet he still considers the trial "open"?
 
Mohammed Radwan, the managing editor of the Independent newspaper Al-Masri Al-Youm told us that his reporters are still allowed to attend the trial but can't report anything until a verdict is reached.
 
"We're not allowed to publish any of the testimonies of the witnesses," Radwan said, "I think this is something very negative for the reader in general."
 
But what really concerns some is the belief that the order was placed to help Mustafa's case and his friendship with the son of President Hosni Mubarak played a role.  
 
"He is considered one of the most prominent businessmen in the country.  So we believe that the gag order was to protect him and not for the trial itself," Rawda Ahmed, a lawyer who is appealing the media blackout, told us.
 
Others in the country say that it is impossible that cronyism will factor into the case and that the ruling family can't save him now.
 
"What we have on hand here is someone who murdered a woman because she dumped him.  It's as simple as that.  So this is not something that the regime can easily defend," media analyst Hisham Kassem told CNN.
 
The trial will resume later this month with journalists forced to bite their tongue or risk jail time - another step back for the media in a country where press freedom often depends on the government's mood.