Ashraf Marwan

Mohamed Ashraf Abu El Wafa Marwan, known as Ashraf Marwan (Arabic: أشرف مروان‎ 2 February 1944 – 27 June 2007), was an Egyptian official who was alleged to have spied for the Israeli Mossad, though former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak later denied the claim. Other accounts contend that he served as a double agent for Egypt, providing misleading information to Israel.

From 1969 on, Marwan worked at the Presidential Office, first under Gamal Abdel Nasser and then as a close aide to his successor, Anwar Sadat. In the lead-up to the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Marwan provided information to Israel.

In the 1980s, Marwan moved to London, where he became an arms dealer. He died under mysterious circumstances on June 27, 2007, after falling from the balcony of his house in London. His wife and relatives testified that before his death, he expressed concerns that he was being followed.

Marwan was born on February 2, 1944, in the Manshiyat al-Bakri neighborhood of Cairo, Egypt. His grandfather was the chief of the Sharia courts in Egypt, and his father, a military officer, reached the rank of major general in the Egyptian military, with a final assignment as deputy commander of the Republican Guard. Marwan's mother belonged to the prominent al-Fayyad family.

Marwan graduated from Kubri al-Quba High School on the science track. In 1965, Marwan graduated from Cairo University, where he was part of a military officer training program; after graduating with a degree in chemical engineering, he began working in Egypt's military industry with the rank of second lieutenant. That year, at the age of 21, he met Mona Nasser, the president's second daughter, who was 17 at the time, at the Heliopolis Sporting Club. She fell in love with him, but her father suspected that Marwan's interest in his daughter stemmed more from her political status than her charms. Nasser agreed to the marriage, which took place in July 1966, under her pressure.

Marwan's marriage accelerated his rise within the Egyptian elite. In 1968, Marwan started working in the Presidential Office under Sami Sharaf, Nasser's aide-de-camp and the strongman of the Egyptian security service, who kept an eye on him. In late 1968, Marwan, Mona, and their newborn son, Gamal, left for London, allegedly for the continuation of Marwan's studies. A few months later, Nasser, who was irritated by information concerning their lavish lifestyle, ordered the young couple to return to Egypt, where Marwan continued working under Sami Sharaf.

Marwan's service at the Presidential Office lasted eight years (1968–1976). Although he held only a junior position under Nasser, the president occasionally used him for sensitive missions, such as calming the crisis that erupted after the resignation of General Saad el-Shazly from the army in response to his rival's nomination as chief of staff.

Egypt had begun preparing a war to retake the Sinai Peninsula, which it had lost to Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967. Marwan became an intelligence asset to Israel, offering his services as a "walk-in" to the Israeli embassy in London in 1969. Initially turned down, Israeli intelligence recruited him as a source in 1970. Mossad referred to him as "the source" and gave him the codenames Angel and Babylon.