▪️Kabary Salem put up a sterling show losing in the semi-finals and settled for a bronze medal in the 1989 5th World Championships in Moscow
▪️He has been sentenced to life in prison in the USA for the 2019 murder of his daughter Ola Salem
▪️Salem defeated Kenya’s Kenneth “Valdez” Ochieng in the semis and beat Tanzania’s Joseph Marwa to win a gold medal at the 1991 African Games in Cairo.
28/11/2025
Egyptian boxer Kabary Salem is a mix of a hero and villain.
He is one of Egypt’s most accomplished boxers, and is well remembered for winning Africa’s only medal – a bronze – at the 1989 World Championships in Moscow, Russia.
Among his other achievements was a gold medal he won at the 1991 African Games in Cairo and represented Egypt in the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games.
He later turned pro in 1997 in the USA, and was accused of head-butting one of his opponents to death.
For all his accomplishments, Kabary Salem turned into a villain in 2019 when he killed his own daughter Ola Salem and disposed of the body in Staten Island park, New York in 2019. He is now serving life imprisonment for this unbelievable act which shocked the entire New York in 2019.
First let’s look at his success at the 1989 World Championships, and then later dwell on why killed his daughter.
At the 1989 World Championships, Salem was enjoying top form. In the round of 32 he eliminated Germany’s Alexander Kuemler 15-14.. He then saw off Mongolia’s Khaidan Gantulga 16-12 in the round of 16.
With that brilliant victory, Salem punched his way to the quarter-finals. He sent packing Billy Walsh of Ireland with 18-9 points victory to qualify for the semi-finals where he met him waterloo.
Pitted against East Germany’s Torsten Schmitz, Salem lost 15-2 to settle for a bronze medal, the only one for Africa after the 1986 indifferent showing by the African boxers in Reno, USA, where none
of them won a medal.
Salem received a heroe’s welcome on returning home in Egypt. His next major assignment was in the 1991 African Games at home in Cairo.
He fought his way to the finals winning a gold medal in the light-middleweight division. On his way to the final, Salem fought two boxers from East Africa in the semi-finals and finals.
Against Kenya’s Kenneth “Valdez” Ochieng in the semis, Salem scored what Valdez describes as a controversial points victory. Valdez, now coaching at his own club, Kayole Rapid, in Nairobi spoke to boxersworld.co.ke on his fight against Salem.
“I had watched him in action in the previous fights, he was a hard hitter and liked mixing punches with his opponents when he’s close,” recalls Ochieng whose gameplan, he says, totally frustrated Salem.
“My strategy was to score points on the retreat avoiding close range exchanges with him,” says Ochieng.
“He had a powerful right punch, I felt him severally in the fight because there’s no way a boxer can just be punching his opponents without also being hit.
“From the way I fought I thought I had won but it’s the Egyptian boxer who was given the decision.”
In the dressing room, Ochieng was so disappointed and asking himself how the Egyptian won.
“Maybe the judges gave him victory because of his hard punches, I know during those days they looked at the boxer punching hard. This is wrong. It encouraged more brutality in the ring.
“So long as a boxer is scoring by hitting the target he should be given the points.”
In the finals, Salem outpointed Tanzania’s Joseph Marwa to win a gold medal.
Salem went on to represent Egypt in the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games, losing in the first round in both Games.
After the 1996 Olympics, Salem turned pro in 1997, and relocated with his family to the USA where he settled in New York as a pro boxer.
In his toughest fight ever , Salem lost by a unanimous decision to Welshman Joe Calzaghe who made the 15th successful defence of his WBO super-middleweight title in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 2004.
Throughout his fairly successful pro boxing career, Salem was described as one of the dirtiest fighters in the barechested game and was known for head-butting his opponents like he did in his 2019 fight against Randie Carver who later died but the referee ruled out head-butting as the cause of his death.
He retired in 1997 following three successive defeats with a record of 23 wins, 12 on KOs and five losses.
KABARY SALEM SENTENCED TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR MURDERING HIS DAUGHTER
Lebanon Daily News
November 26, 2025
A former New York Olympic boxer will spend the rest of his life in jail after being sentenced for the murder of his daughter in Palmyra before dumping her body in a Staten Island park in 2019.
Lebanon County Court of Common Pleas Judge Bradford Charles on Nov. 26 sentenced Kabary Salem to life imprisonment without parole for the death of Ola Salem. Kabary Salem was found guilty of first degree homicide after a four-day trial in October.
During his sentencing, Kabary Salem could be seen weeping and saying that police officers were lying about his case.
“I say the truth,” he said to Charles.
Charles rebutted Kabary Salem’s claims during sentencing, saying that the truth is that Ola Salem died by strangulation, her body was transported by a rental car, and the car and videotape shows Kabary Salem was in possession of that car during the time of the incident.
“The circumstantial evidence in this case was overwhelming, and the truth that you now have to confront is that a jury found that you committed first degree murder,” he said to Kabary Salem. “That’s the truth. That’s what the jury found, and there was more than enough evidence to support that finding.”
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Chief Deputy Attorney General Brian Zarallo said that a life sentence was “certainly justice in this case.”
“Ola Salem, while she had her fair share of problems, certainly did not deserve to spend the last seconds of consciousness of her life not just struggling, but being acutely aware that the person who murdered her was in fact her father,” Zarallo said to Charles during sentencing.
Kabary Salem was also sentenced to serve a minimum of one year for the strangulation charge, which Charles said would be served concurrently with his homicide sentence.
The case
At 8:48 a.m. Oct. 24, 2019, the body of 25-year-old Ola Salem was found by two passersby covered with leaves and branches in Bloomingdale Park in Staten Island. Court documents said she was fully clothed, and her New York state identification card was in her pocket.
An autopsy was performed Oct. 25, 2019 by Dr. Anne Hoffa of the New York Office of the Medical Examiner. Her report indicated that there were bruises and contusions to Ola Salem’s body, including the right eye, neck and legs. Bruising and scrapes were found along Ola Salem’s mouth.
“That signifies pressure that was placed on her mouth,” Hoffa testified Oct. 21, 2025. “It could be from a blunt impact or from something covering her mouth.”
Hoffa determined that the cause of death was asphyxia, and the manner of death was homicide.
Kabary Salem told the New York City Police Department on Oct. 24, 2019, that he recently co-purchased a restaurant in the 600 block of East Main Street in Palmyra. He went to New York on Oct. 22, 2019 to pick up Ola Salem to help him paint the establishment.
According to Kabary’s police interview, the last time he saw Ola was when she got into an unknown black sedan away from the restaurant the evening of Oct. 23, 2019. Kabary Salem said this was the last time he saw Ola, and that he spent the night painting the Palmyra establishment.
The New York City Police Department learned that Kabary Salem had rented a Toyota Camry in Piscataway Township, New Jersey, that was equipped with GPS tracking. GPS data indicated that Salem’s vehicle left Palmyra around 2:15 a.m. Oct. 24, 2019, and arrived in Bloomindale Park at 4:40 a.m., around the same area as where the body was found later that morning.
After leaving Staten Island at 4:59 a.m., Kabary Salem traveled to a nearby Wawa. Video footage showed him entering the facility and purchasing several items in the store.
At 8:47 p.m. Oct. 23, 2019, Kabary Salem traveled to the Palmyra Lowe’s hardware store and purchased a blue Kobalt shovel. During his testimony, Kabary Salem said he had purchased the shovel to clean up dust and debris at the restaurant.
A blue Kobalt shovel was located by a Staten Island resident Oct. 24, 2019 in a wooded cul-de-sac, 100 yards diagonally from where Ola Salem’s body was found.
Through GPS tracking, police determined that Kabary returned to Palmyra around 7:33 a.m. Oct. 24, 2019. After trips to the Knights Inn and the Main Street restaurant, he then left the area for a final time around 11 a.m.
Salem then returned the vehicle to the New Jersey Avis Car Rental around 3:52 p.m., hours before meeting with New York City Police for an interview.
Several days after the voluntary interview of Kabary Salem by the NYPD, he left the United States. Law enforcement said that he was located in Kuwait a year later, and he was extradited back to New York City.
The case was referred to the Office of the Pennsylvania Attorney General by Lebanon County District Attorney Pier Hess Graf on June 19, 2024, according to court documents.
Jay Nigrini, Kabary Salem’s attorney, told reporters in October that his client is likely to appeal the verdict
