Omar Suleiman

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Omar Suleiman 2007

Omar Suleiman ( Arabic عمر سليمان, DMG ʿUmar Sulaimān ; * July 2, 1936 in Qina ; †  July 19, 2012 in Cleveland , Ohio , USA ) was an Egyptian politician who was the director of the Egyptian secret service Muchabarat from 1993 to 2011 . After Mubarak dissolved his government, he appointed Suleiman as vice president. Suleiman held the office of Vice President of Egypt from January 29, 2011 to February 11, 2011.

While Suleiman was valued abroad, for many Egyptians he was the key figure in Mubarak's leadership. After the overthrow of long-time ruler Mubaraks, Suleiman had sought to run for president, but the electoral commission excluded him. After his failed candidacy, Suleiman left Egypt.

Life

Suleiman was born in Upper Egypt . In 1954, at the age of 19, he began his training at the military school in Cairo . In the 1960s, like Mubarak a few years earlier, he was trained at the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow , in what was then the Soviet Union . Between 1962 and 1973 he was involved in various positions in all of Egypt's wars with Israel - the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War .

In the 1980s, moved as Egypt into the Western camp, Suleiman was at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg ( North Carolina trained) in intelligence work and "special warfare". He graduated from Ain Shams University in Cairo with a bachelor's and master's degree in political science (mid-1980s) .

Career

His real rise began when he switched to the military intelligence service in 1986 and took over its management in 1991. In 1993, he eventually became the head of the - the president subordinated directly - civil Egyptian intelligence Mucha Barat (also English General Intelligence Service , GIS appointed).

Suleiman gained the deep trust of his supreme boss Mubarak in June 1995. At that time Mubarak took part in an Africa summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa . Eleven Islamic extremists followed him there and opened fire on the presidential limousine on the way from the airport to the city. However, Mubarak remained unscathed: the day before, Suleiman had made sure that the originally planned car was exchanged for an armored Mercedes that he had specially flown in from Egypt. When the bullets hit the vehicle, Suleiman was sitting next to President Mubarak.

Role in the Palestine conflict

Suleiman mediated between Israel and the Palestinian insurgents during the Intifada in 2000 ; he was considered a moderate force in diplomatic circles. Through the publication of cables from US embassies by WikiLeaks , it became known that Suleiman promised Israel in 2005 to stop the democratic elections in the Gaza area . He told Amos Gilad , a senior official in the Israeli Defense Ministry , “There will be no elections in January. We take care of this."

Torture allegations

Victims of torture and human rights groups reported that Suleiman supervised the systematic use of torture and personally tortured a prisoner in the controversial " extraordinary rendition program of the CIA "

Suleiman played a key role in the close cooperation between the Egyptian and US security apparatus. Also in the practice of the secret and clandestine transfer program (“ extraordinary rendition ”) of the US secret services to pick up suspects worldwide and to kidnap them to prisons of loyal third countries, where they were subjected to brutal interrogation methods and torture - which would have been forbidden in prisons on US territory - Suleiman was the contact person for the CIA in Egypt.

In a prominent case, the US brought alleged al-Qaeda activist Ibn Al-Shaykh Al-Libi (1963 Ajdabiya -2009) to Egypt prior to the international military invasion of 2003 in order to forge a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda . Under torture , he was forced to testify that the terrorist network Al-Qaeda was working with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Al-Libi was flown tied up to Cairo, where the CIA relied on the work of Suleiman, wrote the US journalist Ron Suskind in his book “The One Percent Doctrine”. Al-Libi finally made the desired statement - which was then cited by then US Secretary of State Colin Powell as the basis for the public justification of the Iraq war during his presentation to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003. Al-Libi later withdrew his testimony and died under mysterious circumstances in 2009.

The Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib , who witnessed in 2001 in Pakistan how thugs from the Pakistani security forces hunted down "suspicious foreigners" and dragged two young Germans from their seats, interfered, was arrested by the Pakistanis, knocked down and locked in a cell , tortured with electricity, then deported to Egypt, where Suleiman personally interrogated and tortured him. Habib was suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda . Suleiman tried by all means to get Habib to testify and ordered a guard to murder a prisoner from Turkestan in front of Habib. Since April 15, 2011 he has been suing Suleiman and Mubarak in Egypt.

Role in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution

Suleiman promised the Muslim Brotherhood during the revolution that its ban would be lifted and that a political party would be allowed if it withdrew from the demonstrations.

He was traded as the potential successor to President Husni Mubarak . On January 29, 2011, he was appointed Vice President under the pressure of public protests. He was the first Vice President since Mubarak took office.

The former Vice President was questioned by the Egyptian Attorney General's office on April 19, 2011 about the violence against demonstrators to determine what information the secret service had on the January 25 revolution.

2012 presidential candidacy

Suleiman planned to run for the 2012 presidential election in Egypt . In April 2012, however, the electoral commission announced that it would be banned from the presidential election because he had not received the support of voters from 15 provinces as required. Suleiman had previously received the most votes with 20.1 percent in a representative survey by the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm . A law approved by the Islamists in parliament at the same time, which provides for high representatives of the Mubarak regime to be excluded from state office for a period of ten years, has not yet been approved by the military government.

Then he left Egypt and went to the United States . On July 19, 2012, it was announced that Suleiman had died at the age of 76 during medical exams at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio.

Further information

  • Shlomo Shpiro : Intelligence Services and Political Transformation in the Middle East . In: International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence . 17, No. 4, 2004, pp. 575-600. doi : 10.1080 / 08850600490496407 .
  • Owen L. Sirrs: A History of the Egyptian Intelligence Service: A History of the Mukhabarat, 1910-2009 . Routledge, New York 2010, ISBN 9780415569200 .
  • Ron Suskinds: The One Percent Doctrine , 2006.
  • Jane Mayer: The Dark Side , 2008.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aide: Mubarak's longtime spy chief Omar Suleiman dies in US Retrieved on July 19, 2012 (English).
  2. ↑ Spiegel-Online July 19, 2012: Omar Suleiman is dead. Egypt's torturer in a tailored suit
  3. ↑ a b Mubarak's Vice President Suleiman has died. In: ORF . July 19, 2012. Retrieved July 19, 2012 .
  4. ↑ Adam Shatz: Mubarak at the end. Egypt is looking for its future. In: Le Monde Diplomatique. July 9, 2010, accessed November 30, 2018 .
  5. ^ The Telegraph February 24, 2009: The fixer in the shadows who may emerge as Egypt's leader
  6. ↑ Neue Zürcher Zeitung January 29, 2011: The previous head of the secret service becomes the new Vice President of Egypt
  7. ↑ Stern-Online January 29, 2011: Egypt's Vice Suleiman: A shadow man steps into the light
  8. ^ Spiegel-Online January 29, 2011: Egypt's Vice Suleiman. The silent strong man
  9. ^ Spiegel-Online January 29, 2011: Egypt's Vice Suleiman. The silent strong man
  10. ↑ Stern-Online February 4, 2011: Omar Suleiman - Shadow Man in the Spotlight ( Memento from February 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ^ The Telegraph February 24, 2009: The fixer in the shadows who may emerge as Egypt's leader
  12. ^ A b Mary Anne Weaver: Pharaohs-in-Waiting. Who will succeed Egypt's Hosni Mubarak as the ruler of the world's most populous and important Arab country? In: The Atlantic. Retrieved November 30, 2018 (October 2003 Issue).
  13. ↑ «Det blir ikke noe valg i January. Vi shall ta hand om it ». (No longer available online.) Aftenposten, February 7, 2011, archived from the original on February 8, 2011 ; Retrieved March 14, 2011 (Norwegian).
  14. ^ Moyers Admin: Bill Moyers Journal: Michael Winship: For the US in Egypt, Blowback Is a Bitch . PBS. February 22, 1999. Retrieved February 8, 2011.
  15. ^ Egypt in Crisis: Omar Suleiman and CIA Rendition . In: ABC News , February 1, 2011. Retrieved February 8, 2011. 
  16. ↑ Lisa Hajjar: Suleiman: The CIA's man in Cairo . Retrieved February 12, 2011.
  17. ↑ Risen, James. State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, 2006, ISBN 0-7432-7067-3
  18. ↑ Lisa Hajjar: Suleiman: The CIA's man in Cairo , Al Jazeera , February 7, 2011. Retrieved February 13, 2011.
  19. ^ Dana Priest, Dan Eggen: Terror Suspect Alleges Torture. The Washington Post , Jan. 6, 2005.
  20. ↑ http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110415/wl_mideast_afp/australiaegyptpoliticsunrestmubarakguantanamo ( Memento of April 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Agence France-Presse (AFP): Ex-Gitmo Australian sues top Egypt regime officials
  21. ↑ http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/04/egyptians-are-back-in-tahrir-square-to-block-a-counter-revolution/ Ezzat, Ashraf: Egyptians are Back in Tahrir Square to Block a Counter Revolution , April 7, 2011, Dissident Voice
  22. ^ Konrad Adenauer Foundation: Country Report Egypt, September 10, 2010
  23. ↑ Minute minutes of the revolt: Doctors report rising death rates. In: Spiegel Online . January 29, 2011, accessed June 9, 2018 .
  24. ↑ Mubarak deputy quizzed over protest deaths. Omar Suleiman questioned in Egyptian probe into deadly violence used against protesters by Hosni Mubarak's regime. April 19, 2011, accessed November 30, 2018 .
  25. ↑ Presidential election on the Nile: Ten candidates excluded from election in Egypt ( Memento from April 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) at tagesschau.de, April 14, 2012 (accessed on April 14, 2012).
  26. ^ Northeast Ohio: Omar Suleiman, former Egyptian spy chief and vice president, dies at Cleveland Clinic . In: cleveland . Retrieved December 17, 2012. 
personal data
SURNAME Suleiman, Omar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES عمر سليمان
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Egyptian politician
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Qina
DATE OF DEATH 19th July 2012
Place of death Cleveland