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| Africa North |
| Conspiracy Theory du Jour: Late Egypt president's daughter sues journalist |
| 2010-09-20 |
| [Al Arabiya] The daughter of late Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat filed a complaint against veteran journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal for implying that her father killed his predecessor Gamal Abdel-Nasser. Ruqaya Sadat submitted Saturday an official complaint to the prosecutor general accusing Heikal of hinting in a satelite TV show that her father was involved in the killing of late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser. According to the complaint, of which Al Arabiya obtained a copy, Ruqaya Sadat said she was astonished to see that the headlines of several Egyptian newspapers were about Heikal's TV statements which hint at Sadat's involvement in Nasser's death. "The papers quoted Heikal as saying that Sadat made Nasser a cup of coffee which was rumored to have been poisoned," said the complaint. Heikal's account of the last day in Gamal Abdel-Nasser's life hit front pages of several Egyptian Newspapers. The headline of the daily independent al-Dostor read: "40 years later, Heikal drops a bomb about Abdel-Nasser's death." According to the paper, Heika's story implicates Sadat in an indirect way. Heikal's story In his TV show, Heikal said he cannot be sure that Abdel-Nasser's death was not natural. "There is no proof, but there are lots of speculations," he added. Heikal said that Abdel-Nasser and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met in the former's hotel suite in Cairo and had a heated argument which Heikal himself witnessed. "After the argument, Abdel-Nasser looked very nervous so Sadat offered to make him a cup of coffee himself." Sadat, Heikal added, went into the kitchen and made the coffee after dismissing the Nubian cook who was in charge of Abdel-Nasser's kitchen. "Sadat brought the coffee and Abdel-Nasser drank it in front of me." Despite rumors that Abdel-Nasser was poisoned and that the cup of coffee might have been the reason for his death, Heikal pointed out that he found it unlikely that Sadat would do that. "For humane and emotional reasons, I don't think Sadat did that. Plus, there is no tangible proof and no poison was found in the hotel." However, Heikal said, Abdel-Nasser knew that his life was in danger and wrote about that himself. Telling this story for the first time 40 years after Abdel-Nasser's death raised speculations in the media and as to whether Heikal's story aimed at accusing Sadat of killing Abdel-Nasser. Sadat's immediate family were infuriated at what they saw as a direct accusation the tarnishes the late president's image in front of the Egyptian public. "What Heikal said inflicted tremendous damage on me and my family and hurt our feelings deeply," Ruqaya Sadat said in the complaint. Sadat's other daughter, Sekeena, dismissed Heikal's story as false and said in a TV interview that what he said was "totally unacceptable" as well as illogical. "Abdel-Nasser used to dine at my father's throughout the last two years of his life." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 ...Well, let's face it: the conventional wisdom here in the West is that Sadat was a saint and martyr for having the courage to make peace with Israel. Sadat made the deal with Israel because he got his clock cleaned but good after the Yom Kippur War went south on him, and he knew that another loss and he'd be put out of his misery. And the fact is that Sadat was every bit as much a dictator as Nasser was, albeit a bit smarter and more realistic than ol' Gamal ever was. Fortysomething years downrange we forget what a complete idiot Nasser was - think Saddam with a more genial attitude, but still big on secret police, prisons, and megalomaniac projects. I don't think Sadat helped Nasser commune with the Prophet any earlier than he otherwise would have - but it can't be ruled out. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2010-09-20 08:11 |