Hussein Salem

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Hussein Salem
Born
حسين سالم

(1933-11-11)11 November 1933
Cairo, Egypt
Died12 August 2019(2019-08-12) (aged 85)
Madrid, Spain
Nationality
  • Egyptian
  • Spanish
Occupation(s)Jolie Ville Resort owner, East Mediterranean Gas Company co-owner
Known forBusiness mogul, relationship with Hosni Mubarak, investigated for corruption and squandering public money

Hussein Salem (11 November 1933 – 12 August 2019) (

Suisse secrets held accounts at Credit Suisse for years, even after he had been publicly accused of bribery.[6]

Early life and education

Salem was born on 11 November 1933 in

Heliopolis district.[9]

His mother, Hosnia Tabozoda, who was of Turkish origin, encountered great difficulty providing for her children with her late husband's pension, forcing Salem, the eldest of his two siblings to become the family's main provider. He also had five half-siblings from his father's first wife (Hosnia was his second wife), but was not responsible for them, most of whom were older than Salem. Although it has not been proven, he allegedly has Bedouin origins. Some sources say this was a rumor Salem allegedly spread in order to help him secure future business deals with the Bedouin tribes of the southern Sinai Peninsula. The only known relation Salem had with the Bedouin was through marriage; his half-sibling Samiha married into the Abaydah tribe of Ismailia and Sinai.[9]

During his childhood, Salem's sustained an eye injury, disallowing him from entering the mandatory military service. He graduated from the Heliopolis Public High School, but had to repeat his senior year. In 1956, he graduated from

Suez Canal Company, prompting a tripartite assault on Egypt by the United Kingdom, France and Israel. Although Salem favored open markets, there has been no indication that he opposed the canal's nationalization, although he resented Nasser's decision to nationalize the holdings of top capitalists in Egypt in 1961.[9]

In 1959, he married Nazimah Abdel-Hamid Ismail and the couple moved into a three-bedroom apartment in the Golf area of Heliopolis. The monthly rent was 9 (Salem's monthly salary was E£18). The couple's first child, Khaled, was born in 1961, followed by the birth of their daughter, Magda, two years later. According to one of his neighbors at the time, Salem did not own a car or many luxuries for most of the 1960s and early 1970s. He enrolled Khaled into Saint George, a private British school in Heliopolis, an education that Salem had to frequently borrow money to pay for.[9]

He died on 12 August 2019 in Spain.[10][11]

Career

Gamel Abdel Nasser era

Egyptian intelligence in Baghdad

During the early 1960s Salem had landed a job as the branch director for the Arab Company for External Trade in

European colonialism in North Africa, in line with Nasser's foreign policy at the time.[9]

In Casablanca Salem befriended Amin Howeidi who served as Egypt's ambassador to Morocco at the time. That same year, 1963, Howeidi was appointed ambassador to Iraq and he brought Salem with him to serve as the Arab Company's branch director in Baghdad. Salem began cultivating relationships with the high-ranking staff of the Egyptian embassy in Iraq, particularly Amin Yousri the embassy's press-attache and Ibrahim Yousri the embassy's second secretary. Al-Ahram Weekly editor Karem Yehia states that the Yousris claim Salem was a "likable" person, but not "intellectually sophisticated". Howeidi mentored Salem on international politics by enrolling him in study groups particularly after Howeidi was appointed by then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser to the post of Intelligence Director in 1967 following Egypt's defeat in the Six-Day War with Israel.[12]

According to Ibrahim Yousri, Salem gained Howeidi's trust primarily because he was able to regularly provide Howeidi with useful intelligence due to his connections with business circles in Iraq which would have otherwise been difficult to attain through the Egyptian embassy. Amin Yousri claims Salem cultivated good relationships with other Egyptian embassy employees by helping them buy Mercedes vehicles at low interest rates offered by the

Arab States of the Persian Gulf. There he succeeded in establishing his own personal networks that would later become useful during his future business ventures in those states.[12]

Relations between Howeidi and Salem deteriorated following Nasser's death in 1970 and the succession of

nationalist struggles, was imprisoned by Sadat in 1971; Salem, uninterested in Nasser's ideals subsequently abandoned Howeidi, did not visit him in prison and ignored his wife's phone calls. Nonetheless, Salem lost his job in the Intelligence Directorate along with its perks. His half-brother Abdel Hamid later managed to secure Salem a job at Nasr Import and Export Company that same year by petitioning a senior official in Sadat's administration.[12]

Anwar Sadat era

Business in Abu Dhabi

Unhappy at the loss of the prestige and perks of his former intelligence job, Salem decided to move to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 1972 where he became CEO of the Arab Emirates Trade Company, an importer of food supplies for UAE. He was set up there by former Egyptian economy minister Hassan Abbas Zaki, an economic adviser to the president of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed, at the time. Using his position, between 1972 and 1977 Salem reportedly developed extensive business relations in several Western countries, as well as India and Pakistan. Through these contacts, he gained considerable wealth and began transferring large amounts of cash to Switzerland where he also purchased a number of hotels.[12]

Starting in 1977 Salem's financial situation began to improve considerably.

Majorca.[12]

Return to Egypt and move to Washington, D.C.

Salem returned to Egypt following his business ventures in the UAE. In addition to his history with the Egyptian government, he had established relations with highly influential figures in Egypt by appointing their sons or relatives to positions in his company in the UAE. In late 1977, not long after arriving in Egypt, he met

Heliopolis neighborhood. Although he was a millionaire by then, he took a job as an employee of the economy ministry, tasked with managing commercial deals. He reportedly kept his other business ventures private while working in the government. In 1979, Prime Minister Mustafa Khalil appointed him Commissioned Minister of Trade at the Egyptian embassy in Washington, D.C.[12]

That same year, Salem became CEO of the Egyptian American Transportation Company (ETSCO), established in

Persian Gulf states to fund Mujahideen efforts against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and dictatorships in Latin America. Kamal Hassan Ali, the Egyptian minister of foreign affairs at the time, vehemently denied the allegations against ETSCO, calling them "wicked". He claimed the Egyptian government found no evidence of foul play on the part of the company during its year-long investigation of the incident. Ali went on to threaten to sue "anyone who dares to smear his name or any other Egyptian official" in American courts.[13]

CIA agent, Edwin Wilson, told ABC that Salem was a "front man" for Mubarak, according to anonymous employees.[13]

Hosni Mubarak era

Investment in Sinai tourism

Sadat was assassinated in 1981 and was succeeded, later that year, by his vice president Hosni Mubarak who Salem had befriended and worked with in previous years. By 1987, the southern

el-Tor, claim Salem gained contracts for the land along the southern Sinai coast due to his close friendships with Mubarak and his son Gamal. From 1987 until the early 21st-century, Salem had established tourism empire in Sinai, owning several hotels. Major expansions to his business operations in Sinai included a mass conference hall, a golf course, a luxurious mosque for Mubarak's personal use, and numerous palaces, one of which he sold to Mubarak. In 1997, the Jolie Ville hosted a large conference sponsoring peace in the Middle East related to the Arab–Israeli conflict.[14]

The local Bedouins who lived along the southern Sinai coast privately criticized Salem for ignoring their community by not building any projects in the local areas. Members of the el-Tor local council complained that his operations further marginalized the Bedouins by not contributing to their welfare, increasing their sense of marginalization. Abdel-Moneim Said agreed, stating "Salem did not contribute anything that benefited ordinary people in the governorate." In 2002, Said claimed that after the local government constructed a strip-like "Walk" adjacent to the Jolie Ville Hotel intended for locals to open business along, Mubarak ordered the governor to hand it over to Salem.[14]

Egyptian–Israeli gas deals

In 1993, following the

Yediot Aharonoth described Salem as the "number one man" of the normalization process between the two states.[15]

Revolution and trial

Flight to Spain and arrest

Salem fled Egypt on 3 February 2011 during the

Sharm el-Sheikh.[16] Following his arrest, Spanish judges set his bail at €27 million (approximately $33 million), €12 million for the Spanish charges and €15 million for the Egyptian charges.[21]

Trial in Egypt and extradition fight

Salem's trial on the charges related to his sale of gas to Israel at deflated prices began in Egypt on 3 August 2011

Petroleum Minister Sameh Fahmi guilty and sentenced them each to 15 years in prison.[23]

In 2016, Salem signed a deal to make it possible for him and his family to return to Egypt without the risk of facing prosecution. The deal required that Salem give up 75 percent of his wealth. Several wealthy businessmen had fled Egypt after the uprising in order to avoid the corruption charges. There was a wide effort for reconciliation with these businessmen and the deal with Salem was part of it.[10] However, Salem resided in Spain until his death due to the Spanish authorities' refusal to extradite him.[24]

See also

Further reading

References

  1. ^ Bradley, Matt (16 June 2011). "Mubarak Associate is Arrested in Spain". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 8 July 2011.
  2. ^ a b "News of the Day From Across the Globe". San Francisco Chronicle. 17 June 2011. Archived from the original on 2 February 2013. Retrieved 8 July 2011.
  3. ^ a b "Top Egyptian officials involved in facilitating Israel gas deal, say leaked documents". The Daily News Egypt. Archived from the original on 1 July 2011. Retrieved 8 July 2011.
  4. ^ a b "Israel gas deal sparks attacks in Egypt". CNN. 14 May 2011. Archived from the original on 31 May 2011. Retrieved 8 July 2011.
  5. ^ Hope, Bradley. "Egypt's pursuit of Mubarak's cronies falters Archived 7 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine". The National. 7 May 2013. Retrieved 7 May 2013.
  6. ^ OCCRP and SüddeutscheZeitung (21 February 2022). "Egyptian Tycoon Hussein Salem's Ties to Credit Suisse Weathered Decades of Scandal". Retrieved 23 February 2022.
  7. ^ Interpol. "Salem, Hussein". Interpol. Archived from the original on 18 May 2011. Retrieved 28 August 2011.
  8. ^ Talaat, Nayrouz (28 June 2011). "A man worth $58.7 billion". The Egyptian Gazette. Archived from the original on 12 March 2012. Retrieved 3 March 2013.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Hussein Salem: A businessman from the times of crony capitalism, Part 1 Archived 27 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Al-Ahram Weekly. 21 June 2011.
  10. ^ a b "Egyptian tycoon and Mubarak ally Hussein Salem dies". Reuters. 13 August 2019. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
  11. ^ "وفاة رجل الأعمال حسين سالم فى مدريد عن عمر يناهز 85 عاما". اليوم السابع. 13 August 2019. Archived from the original on 13 August 2019. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
  12. ^ a b c d e f Yehia, Karem (22 June 2011). "Hussein Salem: A businessman from the times of crony capitalism (part two)". Al-Ahram Weekly. Archived from the original on 25 June 2011. Retrieved 8 July 2011.
  13. ^ a b Yehia, Karem. Hussein Salem: A businessman from the times of crony capitalism (part three) Archived 30 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Al-Ahram Weekly. 24 June 2011
  14. ^ a b Yehia, Karem. Hussein Salem: A businessman from the times of crony capitalism (part four) Archived 4 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Al-Ahram Weekly. 31 August 2011.
  15. ^ Yehia, Karem. Hussein Salem: A businessman from the times of crony capitalism – Part five Archived 3 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Al-Ahram Weekly. 26 June 2011.
  16. ^ a b c "Bail Set for Billionaire Accused of Corruption With Mubarak". The New York Times. 17 June 2011. Archived from the original on 18 August 2017. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  17. ^ "Detienen en España a un empresario vinculado a Mubarak por blanqueo". El Mundo. 16 June 2011. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 7 September 2011.
  18. ^ "Egypt to send Hussein Salem extradition file to Spain". State Information Center. 18 June 2011. Archived from the original on 15 June 2013. Retrieved 3 March 2013.
  19. ^ "Israel has a gas conundrum". The Economist. 17 August 2017. Archived from the original on 18 August 2017. Retrieved 18 August 2017.
  20. ^ Palazzolo, Joe (17 June 2011). "High Tide: From Swiss Innovations To Separate UN Sanctions". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 12 October 2012. Retrieved 8 July 2011.
  21. ^ a b "Spanish court orders extradition of Mubarak associate". BBC News. 2 March 2012. Archived from the original on 5 March 2012. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  22. ^ "Spain: Court Orders Mubarak Associate to Face Corruption Charges in Egypt". The New York Times. 3 March 2012. Archived from the original on 15 December 2014. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  23. ^ "Following gas-deal verdict, Hussein Salem to return to Egypt". Egypt Independent. 29 November 2014. Archived from the original on 5 December 2014. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  24. ^ "Recovering stolen assets: Making a hash of finding the cash". The Economist. 11 May 2013. Archived from the original on 31 January 2014. Retrieved 21 March 2014.