Who killed Egyptian billionaire Marwan?
Qatar Living
July 1, 2007
Ashraf Marwan, the son-in-law of the former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and a suspected spy for Israel, has been found dead outside his central London flat in “unexplained” circumstances. The Egyptian billionaire, who died aged 62 on Wednesday in London, was the third Egyptian to have jumped off a balcony in London.
One young Egyptian blogger wrote yesterday there “must be something very appealing about a London balcony which tempts famous Egyptians to throw themselves off it.”
Six years ago — also in June — the famous Egyptian actress Souad Hosni allegedly threw herself off the balcony of a residential tower in Maida Vale, North London. In the mid-1970s, Leithy Nassif, the former head of the presidential guard under the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat threw himself off a balcony in the very same tower in Maida Vale. The common link between the three is that they all had intelligence links and were rumoured to have been writing their memoirs at the time of their alleged suicides.
Nassif had helped Sadat stage his palace coup following the death of his predecessor Gamal Abdul-Nasser, when Sadat arrested all Nasser’s men in 1971. Souad Hosni, the idol of Arab cinema, was allegedly employed by the Egyptian intelligence in the 1960s, something which had continued to ruin her reputation after the fall of those who supported her. Her last 10 years were spent in London, where she suffered deep depression and impoverishment. Thus, at the time of her death in 2001, it was said, she was considering finding a publisher for her memoirs to raise money.
Then came the death of Ashraf Marwan last week, which prompted every Egyptian media outlet since then to revisit all conspiracy theories concerning the death of Egyptians in London.
Marwan’s career and connections represent a feast for anyone interested in conspiracy theories. Having married Nasser’s daughter shortly before the late Egyptian president died in 1970, he became president Sadat’s personal political aide in the early 1970s, and later head of Egypt’s Military Industry Organisation before moving to London in the 1980s where he became a billionaire. In 2004, retired major general Eli Zeira, head of military intelligence during the Yom Kippur War, had alleged that Marwan was recruited by Israeli intelligence, Mossad, a year before Nasser died. As if espionage for Mossad was not enough, Marwan’s name was also linked with claims of illicit weapons trading in the Middle East. He was also rumoured to be a close associate of the maverick Mohamed al- Fayad, owner of Harrods and father of Dodi, Princess Diana’s companion who died with her in a car crash in Paris.
Marwan was said to be the principal player in the Tiny Rowland versus al-Fayed war over the House of Fraser which owned Harrods.
In his book Who Killed Diana? Simon Regan an investigative journalist and author of biographies of Prince Charles and Princess Margaret, dedicated a special chapter of his book to Marwan. Regan says: “Cold journalistic logic brings one to the inevitable conclusion that Ashraf Marwan made the most perfect double agent for nearly all of the Middle Eastern and Western espionage agencies.
The “strong circumstantial evidence is that Marwan could not possibly have moved freely in London or Paris (in the particular activities he was known to be engaged in) unless he enjoyed absolute immunity, or, at the very least, official protection,” he says. – DPA
Egyptian billionaire ‘who spied for Mossad’ found dead
Rajeev Syal
The Times
June 28, 2007
An Egyptian billionaire financier who feared for his life after being accused of being a Mossad spy was found dead outside his Mayfair flat yesterday in suspicious circumstances.
Ashraf Marwan, the son-in-law of the late President Gamel Abdel Nasser, was found beneath his fourth-floor flat in Carlton House Terrace. Police were treating his death as suspicious. Friends of Mr Marwan, a former shareholder in Chelsea Football Club, said that he had feared assassination after being named three years ago as an agent during the Yom Kippur war. Rumours of his death circulated in London’s Arab community last night. Some believe that he may have taken his life after a serious illness was diagnosed.
Mr Marwan’s death will send shockwaves across the Middle East and among some of Britain’s wealthiest people. His associates included Adnan Khashoggi, the arms dealer, Ken Bates, the football club chairman, the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and the late Tiny Rowland.
If found to be murder, his death will carry echoes of last year’s assassination of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent.
Mr Marwan, 63, was identified as an agent by the Vanity Fairwriter Harold Bloom in his book Eve of Destruction, which detailed his involvement in the Yom Kippur war in 1973. Although Nasser, who humiliated the British Government at Suez, died in 1970, Mr Marwan, his son-in-law, was part of the inner circle of his successor, Anwar Sadat, who started the war.
The identity of the agent, described by a postwar Israeli inquiry commission only as “the source”, had been a closely guarded secret. Evidence pointed towards someone high in the Egyptian Establishment. From published accounts based on Israeli sources, it was alleged that Mr Marwan was a “walk-in” who entered an Israeli embassy in Europe and offered his services in 1969. Extensive checks convinced Mossad that he was not a double agent.
In the ensuing years Mr Marwan provided information on Egypt and the Arab world that Moshe Dayan, the Israeli Defence Minister, and others would later term priceless. Some believed that he was a double agent. Mr Marwan denied the claims, saying that he had never worked for the intelligence communities on any side. Mr Bloom acknowledged that he could be assassinated.
Mr Marwan was believed to have been born in Egypt into a wealthy family. He married Nasser’s daughter Muna in the 1960s and they had two sons and a number of grandchildren. Rumours of how he made his money have circulated within the Arab community for many years. Many say that he was an arms dealer and had been introduced to plenty of contacts by Sadat. Mr Marwan considered London his main home, according to friends, despite owning property across the world. Standing at 6ft 2in and very thin, he was seen at a social gathering in Central London last week with his wife.
Mr Marwan was a friend of Ken Bates, the former Chelsea chairman, and at one point held a 3 per cent share in Chelsea Village, one of the holding companies of the club. Later he was believed to be the subject of a Financial Services Authority inquiry into the sale of shares to Roman Abramovich, the current owner. He was also believed to have owned the Son Vida, one of the best hotels in Majorca.
Last night police kept a tight cordon around Carlton House Terrace, a white Grade I listed building overlooking St James’s Park that stretches between Buckingham Palace and Horse Guards Parade. Friends of the family said that Mr Marwan’s wife was flying back to Britain from Egypt.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said last night: “We were called at around 13.40 to Carlton House Terrace. The death is being treated as suspicious at this stage and the inquiries are under way.”
Filed under: Business and Economy, Egyptian Affairs, History and Culture, Law and Social Policy, Politics and Diplomacy
Egypt: a diagnosis
By Tarek Osman
openDemocracy
June 28, 2007
Egypt is stuck: its institutions, ideas and young population covered by a pall of stagnation that to many offers only emigration or radicalism as available options. What is the nature of the paralysis, and what can be done? Tarek Osman reports.
Talk to people intimately familiar with Egypt, and you’ll find two views dominating how they perceive the country today. The first is a romantic, nostalgic view of a glorious history, ancient and recent; a country whose potential is dramatic in terms of its intellectual capital, reservoir of talent, geographic location, and aptitude for leadership. In that perspective, Egypt remains an unfulfilled promise, hampered only by poor management and regional circumstances.The second viewpoint is less sanguine. It sees Egypt as structurally failing, with disenchanted, poorly educated, bitter youths; fundamental problems in the socio-economic dynamics; crushing, humiliating living standards for a majority of its citizens; and pervasive corruption, passiveness and sullenness.
An Italian friend of mine, from Lombardia no less (Italy’s wealthiest region) visits Egypt annually and could spend hours lecturing poetically on Egypt’s charm - and potential; another friend from Kuwait visits grudgingly, only for business purposes, and for the briefest of periods. And in between, millions of Egyptian youths strive to emigrate, some in search not merely of “better” living but of the very basis of sustainable life; yet relatively few Egyptians return to the country from New York, London and Dubai to start businesses in various sectors.
Which of those two portraits is closer to the reality of today’s Egypt? To answer this question, it is necessary to examine how Egypt’s modern face is shaped by six striking characteristics, which I will examine in turn.
A spreading tide
The first characteristic is the omnipresent - and in many quarters fearsome - socio-political Islam. With eighty-eight out of 440 seats in the parliament, control of almost all professional syndicates and universities’ students unions, unprecedented levels of veiled women and bearded men among ordinary Egyptians, and a flood of religion-based TV shows, the influence of socio-political Islam in Egypt is pervasive and unavoidable. According to numerous serious commentators, if a truly free election took place in Egypt, the Islamic movement - led by the Muslim Brotherhood - would sweep to a parliamentary majority.
The influence of socio-political Islam in Egypt is fivefold:
▪ Egypt has, over the past millennium, been a religious society, but a secular state. Egypt has never experienced al-wali al-faqih (rule by religious jurisprudence) phenomenon that Iran is undergoing or that Pakistan, Saudi, Morocco and other Islamic states have passed through - in one form or another. Egypt’s rulers, since the Pharaonic era, have always stayed close to the religious establishment, but never assumed its leadership. Egypt’s influence in its sphere - through its history, music, literature, films, media and universities - have traditionally been fiercely secular in nature, what the doyen of Arab political commentators, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, refers to as Egypt’s “tender power”.
The omnipresent, overarching socio-political Islam currently taking Egypt by a storm is, in effect, fundamentally altering the Egyptian society’s foundations of power, claim to influence, and traditional regional role. Egypt’s prominent cultural exports today, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Amr Khaled (two leading Islamic preachers) are vastly different from earlier exports such as Umm Kalthoum (the Arab world’s leading singing diva), Naguib Mahfouz (the Arab world’s sole Nobel literature laureate) and Adel Imam (its most prominent actor).
▪ Socio-political Islam alters not only Egypt’s positioning in the Arab - and non Arab - worlds, but also alters how its young people perceive the country. Socio-political Islam is turning Egypt into a mix of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, a land in search of an identity, confused between its glamorous, pagan past; liberal recent history; and conservative present; a country pregnant with angst - not the mini-Vienna that Khedive Ismael (Egypt’s ruler in the 1860s and 1870s) was trying to build, not the monarchical Egypt that was a destination for talented Italians, Greeks, Lebanese, and Armenians; not even Nasserite Egypt that was a beacon of political progressiveness.
▪ Internally, socio-political Islam divides Egyptians into true Muslims, good Muslims, semi-good Muslims, OK Muslims, not-too-bad Muslims, bad Muslims, and non-Muslims. Such division entrenches the Islamist view of Egypt, yet affect serious social divisions in a country that has always boasted of its diversity, tolerance, and of being the centre of gravity in the Arab world.
▪ Also internally, socio-political Islam, like any religion-based socio-political system, installs the anchor of “truth” in the backyard of the religious establishment. What’s right is what the religious establishment deems right; what’s heretic is what the religious establishment finds distasteful. Egypt no longer has a Taha Hussein, an Abbas Mahmoud al-Akkad, a Tawfik al-Hakim to turn to for intellectual guidance; in today’s Egypt numerous sheikhs self-assume such role. And such change has an effect on Egyptians’ collective self-perception.
▪ The October 2006 issue of Vanity Fair ran a long investigative piece on the life of a mid-20s Egyptian man without a job, without money, without a girlfriend, with few very-unpleasant encounters with the security apparatus, and with a very bleak view of the future (see Scott Anderson, “Under Egypt’s volcano”, Vanity Fair, October 2006). It ended with the young man sending his American friend - the Vanity Fair writer - a letter expressing his wishes: winning in the annual American visa lottery or finding solace amongst his religious brethren!
A hollowed middle-class
The second characteristic is the weakening of Egypt’s middle class.
Some observers claim that Egypt’s middle class has vanished. This is not true. Egypt’s middle class continues to constitute the largest strata of the society. It is, however, severely weakened. Here, three factors are relevant:
▪ Economically, Egypt’s middle class is poorer - in terms of its purchasing power. The flotation of the Egyptian pound - in a country that imports the majority of its food and basic material needs - and the concentration of the supply of a number of salient industries in few economic hands, resulted in a painful inflation. As Sahar al-Ga’ara (an active feminist and journalist) has put it: “the Egyptian middle class family used to complain for decades of the increasing fees of private tutoring, now they complain of the price of sugar and tea.”
▪ With the greater emphasis on securing daily needs, the engagement in politics and public debate has subsided. Admittedly, it was never dramatic in Egypt, but it is revealing that despite huge campaigning on the government’s and opposition’s sides for the package of constitutional changes, fewer than 22% of registered voters (who themselves are a minority) turned out to vote in the March 2007 referendum (and that figure includes swathes of government employees who are virtually shipped to the polling booths). Moreover, in June 2007 only 7% of Egyptians bothered to vote in the election to the shura (the Egyptian parliament’s upper house).
▪ Interestingly, the middle class in Egypt recognises its weakening. No longer the Egyptian universities, unions, syndicates, artists’ groupings, middle-ranking government employees feel that their needs are addressed and their sensibilities regarded. The concentration of power in the hands of a select group of notables, mainly from the new guard at the ruling National Democratic Party; the vast prominence and influence of a small group of businessmen and financiers; and the absence of any grand national project or inspiring goal, has left Egypt’s middle class painfully aware of the hollowness and fragility of its traditional position in the society. This position has not disappeared, but it pulsates with frustration.
The unseen unknown
The third characteristic is uncertainty.
The political scene in Egypt over the past sixty years was hardly a recipe for long-term political stability - yet there was always an omnipresent feeling of certainty about where power resided. President Gamal Abdel Nasser died at the age of 52, amidst his frenetic preparations for a military attack against Israel to liberate Sinai; Egypt was shocked; a power struggle ensued, from which Anwar Sadat emerged victorious. Yet notwithstanding the struggle at the top, there was certainty that the new ruler would establish a definite centre of power. True, this did not prevent Sadat from being assassinated in October 1981. Egypt was shocked; but despite the tumultuous situation, it was again foreordained that the vice-president ( Hosni Mubarak) would ascend to power.
Today, the situation is far less clear (see “Egypt: who’s on top?“, 7 June 2005). President Mubarak has been ruling for over a quarter of a century - and there are no clear plans for his succession. Scenarios abound: Gamal Mubarak, the president’s son, is touted as the heir; the National Democratic Party almost certainly will nominate him, but what about the views of the millions whose sympathies lie with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Nasserites, the liberals, and others who certainly do not favour the succession-by-inheritance scenario? What about the views - and actions - of Egypt’s most influential power, the military?
Uncertainty overhangs Egypt’s political future, leaving the political scene tense, agitated, and open to different scenarios - dreams as well as nightmares.
A social wound
The fourth characteristic is poverty.
Egypt has always been a poor country, at least by GDP per-capita basis. Egyptians are used to citing eras when the Egyptian pound was worth more than £2.5 (today, a pound sterling buys more than ten Egyptian pounds), times when Egypt was granting Saudi Arabia wheat and sugar, let alone the elegant robes that adorns the Ka’aba (Islam’s holiest site, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia). Yet, the economic truth is that Egypt, though of high economic potential, has always witnessed significant gaps in income, widespread poverty, and a perverse wealth distribution. However, poverty in Egypt today is different. It’s stark, close to the society’s core, and increasingly aggressive.
Today’s poverty is stark in the sense that it is an all-encompassing vicious circle. Egypt’s lower classes are deprived not only of employment opportunities, passable education, and any luxury whatsoever; they are lacking basic human needs such as decent shelter, clear water, and humane transportation systems. That class relies almost wholly on the government’s programmes to provide basic needs - programmes that are, at best, too little, too late.
Poverty is close to the society’s core because it is directly affecting Egypt’s middle class. The millions in middle-ranking government jobs, the swathes of low-income professionals, technicians, teachers, and the vast majority of farmers, have relatively acceptable infrastructure, but extremely limited chances of social advancement, and a high chance of slipping down to lower social strata. Poor, ineffective education, and subsequently general low levels of skills - especially ones required for new, high-paying jobs; severe crunch in the transportation, health and insurance systems; a subtle, but gradual withdrawal of the state from its market-regulating and social-provision role; and recently, following the sudden flotation of the Egyptian pound, a painful inflation, out of synch with wage increases - all contribute to the dire economic state of Egypt’s middle classes.
And it’s aggressive. A casual review of the types of crimes that have emerged in the Egyptian society over the past ten-to-fifteen years, reveal a slow, but steady inclination towards violence. The major case named “al-Turbini” after one of its defendants - where dozens of children and teenagers were involved in violence, crime, and sexual abuse - is but one example.
The world beyond
The fifth characteristic is the brain-drain.
Egypt is witnessing two contrasting phenomena. A tiny, small cadre of businessmen, entrepreneurs, engineers, and financiers are returning to Egypt from high-flying locations such as New York, San Francisco, London and Dubai. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of well-educated, typically middle-class young men and women in their 20s and 30s are leaving, mainly to the Gulf. Any survey of low- and middle-level jobs in the banking, clerical, and commercial sectors in the Gulf would reveal a steady growth in the percentage of Egyptians in such sectors. In a nutshell, the well qualified and relatively well educated, with a few years of experience in Egypt, leave for much better job opportunities, leaving behind those who couldn’t get such offers. A friend of mine who manages one of Egypt’s most respected securities-research boutiques was complaining of the difficulty of finding three junior research associates. The ones she wanted are heading to the Gulf.
This is a problem interlinked with the ones mentioned above. The crushing of the middle class under economic pressures, the increasing conservatism of the society, and the emergence of blatant, crude savagery are affecting young, bright things in more than one way - all contributing to a widespread desire to “opt-out”.
Between potential and reality
The sixth consideration is potential, not kinetic energy.
The first five considerations make many observers lament that Egypt’s energy - its young, growing population; its mass of talent; its diversified economy; and its sheer magnificence at mobilisation - is potential, but not actionable. That divergence between what’s potential and what’s actually taking place is glaring in numerous areas: in the fact that Egypt’s role in Arab and middle-eastern affairs has retreated to a supporter of Saudi Arabia; that its economy is huge, but vastly inferior in terms of openness, efficacy and competitiveness to ones such as that of the UAE and Bahrain; that its cultural products are no longer lead the market in the Arab world; that it now plays catch-up with Syria, Lebanon and Tunisia.
All of the above does not mean that Egypt is doomed to remain a potential - or even, spent - force. A number of initiatives and positive developments, currently taking place, have the capacity to affect positive changes. Yet, a grand view of and strategy for tackling Egypt’s interlinked problems is severely lacking. And some might argue the will is also lacking.
Natasha Walter of the Guardian, in a review of a novel by Khaled Hosseini that speaks of the daily lives of millions of ordinary people in a developing country, describes “the faces of grievances unspoken, burdens gone unprotested, and a destiny submitted to and endured”. Reading those words, I couldn’t help but think of millions of Egyptians.
Tarek Osman is an Egyptian investment banker covering the Gulf and UK markets.
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