Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose regime was toppled in 2011, had planned to stage a coup against his late predecessor Anwar Sadat, the latter’s daughter Ruqaya told Al Arabiya on Tuesday.
Mubarak, who served as Anwar’s vice president, visited the Pentagon at the time without informing him, she said.
“About one year or one year and a half before the assassination of my father, there were reports of a conspiracy to overthrow him, and it was the Israeli intelligence who informed my father,” Ruqaya added.
“Anwar Sadat, when he used to get cold, he delegates the vice president to run the country’s affairs. When he used to travel he used to do the same thing. It was clear that Mubarak tempted to hold power early on,” she said.
Egypt’s ambassador in London at the time told her that some of Mubarak’s and then-Defense Minister al-Musheer Abu Ghazleh’s trips to foreign countries “were suspicious,” and that the two men wanted to overthrow the government, Ruqaya said.
Three weeks prior to her father’s assassination, she conveyed the envoy’s worries to him, she added.
“He was surprised by what I told him, because he was planning to step down after all Egyptian lands are freed, and only hold the position as chief of the National Democratic Party,” she said.
Anwar is famous for signing the Camp David Accords with Israel in September 1978, regaining Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and winning him the Nobel Peace Prize, but angering many Arabs who accused him of betraying their cause.
He was assassinated in 1981 by Egyptian army officer Khalid al-Islambouli, who was captured and tried.
His motive was Anwar’s signing of the Camp David Accords, said Islambouli, who was found guilty and executed in April 1982.
