Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the 4th president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011 and the 41st prime minister from 1981 to 1982. He was previously the 7th vice president under President Anwar Sadat from 1975 until his accession to the presidency. Before he entered politics, Mubarak was a career officer in the Egyptian Air Force. He served as its commander from 1972 to 1975 and rose to the rank of air chief marshal in 1973.
After Sadat was assassinated in 1981, Mubarak assumed the presidency in a single-candidate referendum, and renewed his term through single-candidate referendums in 1987, 1993, and 1999. Under United States pressure, Mubarak held the country's first multi-party election in 2005, which he won. In 1989, he succeeded in reinstating Egypt's membership in the Arab League, which had been frozen since the Camp David Accords with Israel, and in returning the Arab League's headquarters back to Cairo. He was known for his supportive stance on the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, in addition to his role in the Gulf War. Despite providing stability and reasons for economic growth, his rule was repressive. The state of emergency, which had not been lifted since the 1967 war, stifled political opposition, the security services became known for their brutality, and corruption became widespread.
Mubarak stepped down during the 2011 Egyptian revolution after 18 days of demonstrations, transferring power to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. He was later ordered to stand trial on charges of killing peaceful protesters during the revolution. These trials began on 3 August 2011, making him the first Arab leader to be tried in his own country in an ordinary court of law. On 2 June 2012, an Egyptian court sentenced Mubarak to life imprisonment. After sentencing, he was reported to have suffered a series of health crises. On 13 January 2013, Egypt's Court of Cassation overturned Mubarak's sentence and ordered a retrial. On retrial, Mubarak and his sons were convicted on 9 May 2015 of corruption and given prison sentences. Mubarak was detained in a military hospital while his sons were freed on 12 October 2015 by a Cairo court. Mubarak was acquitted on 2 March 2017 by the Court of Cassation and was released on 24 March 2017.
Mubarak died in 2020, aged 91. He was honoured with a military funeral and buried at a family plot outside Cairo. Mubarak's presidency lasted almost thirty years, making him Egypt's longest-serving ruler since Muhammad Ali Pasha, who ruled the country for 43 years from 1805 to 1848.
Early life and education
Hosni Mubarak was born on 4 May 1928 in Kafr El-Meselha, Monufia Governorate, Egypt. On 2 February 1949, he left the Military Academy and joined the Air Force Academy, gaining his commission as a pilot officer on 13 March 1950 and eventually receiving a bachelor's degree in aviation sciences.Air Force career
Mubarak served as an Egyptian Air Force officer in various formations and units; he spent two years in a Spitfire fighter squadron. Some time in the 1950s, he returned to the Air Force Academy as an instructor, remaining there until early 1959. From February 1959 to June 1961, Mubarak undertook further training in the Soviet Union, attending a Soviet pilot training school in Moscow and another at Kant Air Base near Bishkek in the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic.Mubarak undertook training on the Ilyushin Il-28 and Tupolev Tu-16 jet bombers. In 1964 he gained a place at the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow. On his return to Egypt, he served as a wing commander, then as a base commander; he commanded the Cairo West Air Base in October 1966 then briefly commanded the Beni Suef Air Base. In November 1967, Mubarak became the Air Force Academy's commander when he was credited with doubling the number of Air Force pilots and navigators during the pre-October War years. Two years later, he became Chief of Staff for the Egyptian Air Force.
In 1972, Mubarak became Commander of the Air Force and Egyptian Deputy Minister of Defense. On 6 October 1973, at the breakout of the Yom Kippur War, the Egyptian Air Force launched a surprise attack on Israeli soldiers on the east bank of the Suez Canal. Egyptian pilots hit 90% of their targets, making Mubarak a national hero. The next year he was promoted to Air Chief Marshal in recognition of service during the October War of 1973 against Israel. Mubarak was credited in some publications for Egypt's initial strong performance in the war. The Egyptian analyst Mohamed Hassanein Heikal said the Air Force played a mostly psychological role in the war, providing an inspirational sight for the Egyptian ground troops who carried out the crossing of the Suez Canal, rather than for any military necessity. However Mubarak's influence was also disputed by Shahdan El-Shazli, the daughter of the former Egyptian military Chief of Staff Saad el-Shazly. She said Mubarak exaggerated his role in the 1973 war. In a 2011 interview with the independent Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm, El-Shazli said Mubarak altered documents to take credit from her father for the initial success of the Egyptian forces in 1973. She also said photographs pertaining to the discussions in the military command room were altered and Saad El-Shazli was erased and replaced with Mubarak. She stated she intended to take legal action.
Vice President of Egypt
In April 1975, President Anwar Sadat appointed Mubarak Vice President of Egypt. In this position, he took part in government consultations that dealt with the future disengagement of forces agreement with Israel. In September 1975, Mubarak went on a mission to Riyadh and Damascus to persuade the Saudi Arabian and Syrian governments to accept the disengagement agreement signed with the Israeli government, but was refused a meeting by the Syrian president Hafez al-Assad. During his meetings with the Saudi government, Mubarak developed a friendship with the nation's powerful Crown Prince Fahd, whom Sadat had refused to meet or contact and who was now seen as a major player who could help mend the failing relationship between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Mubarak also developed friendships with several other important Arab leaders, including Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud, Oman's Sultan Qaboos, Morocco's King Hassan II, and Sudan's President Jaafar Nimeiry.Sadat also sent Mubarak to numerous meetings with foreign leaders outside the Arab world. Mubarak's political significance as Vice President can be seen from a conversation held on 23 June 1975 between Foreign Minister Fahmy and US Ambassador Hermann Eilts. Fahmy told Eilts that "Mubarak is, for the time being at least, likely to be a regular participant in all sensitive meetings" and he advised the ambassador not to antagonize Mubarak because he was Sadat's personal choice. Though supportive of Sadat's earlier efforts made to bring the Sinai Peninsula back into Egyptian control, Mubarak agreed with the views of various Arab leaders and opposed the Camp David Accords for failing to address other issues relating to the Arab–Israeli conflict. Sadat even transferred his decision-making authority to Mubarak temporarily at times he went on vacations.
President of Egypt
Mubarak was injured during the assassination of President Sadat in October 1981 by soldiers led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli; however, the assassination plot altogether was acknowledged to have been led by Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj. Following Sadat's death, Mubarak became the fourth president of Egypt.Egypt's return to the Arab League
Until Libya's suspension from the Arab League at the beginning of the Libyan Civil War, Egypt was the only state in the history of the organization to have had its membership suspended, because of President Sadat's peace treaty with Israel. In June 1982, Mubarak met King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, which marked a beginning of an Egyptian-Saudi rapprochement. Since Egypt is the most populous Arab country and Saudi Arabia the richest, the Saudi–Egyptian axis was a powerful force in the Arab world. At an Arab League summit later in 1982 in Fez, Saudi Arabia put forward an Egyptian peace plan where in exchange for Israel resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict by allowing a Palestinian state, the entire Arab world would make peace with Israel.The Islamic Republic of Iran had, from 1979 onward, been making the claim to be the leader of the Islamic world, and in particular Ayatollah Khomeini had called for the overthrow of the governments of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab states along the southern shores of the Persian Gulf, calling these states illegitimate. The claim of the Ayatollah Khomeini to be the rightful leader of the Islamic world and his attempts to export the Iranian revolution by working to overthrow governments that Khomeini deemed un-Islamic caused profound alarm and fear in the governments that were targeted like Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In the face of the Iranian challenge, the other Arab states looked towards Egypt as an ally. For King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and the other leaders of the Arab Gulf states, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict faded into the background and the main concern was resisting Iranian pretensions to be the leader of the Islamic world, meaning that Egypt could not be ignored.
During the Iran–Iraq War from 1980 to 1988, Egypt supported Iraq militarily and economically with one million Egyptians working in Iraq to take the place of Iraqi men serving on the front-line. In December 1983, Mubarak welcomed Yasser Arafat of the PLO to a summit in Cairo, marking a rapprochement with the PLO, and from that time, Egypt became the PLO's main ally. In 1985, the Achille Lauro hijacking caused a major crisis in relations when the U.S Air Force forced an EgyptAir plane carrying the Achille Lauro hijackers to Tunisia to land in Italy; otherwise the plane would have been shot down. Mubarak stated in a press conference on 12 October 1985: "I am very wounded. Now there is coolness and strain as a result of this incident." Egypt had been ostracized by the other Arab states for signing the Camp David Accords in 1979, but Egypt's weight within the Arab world had led to Egypt regaining its "central place in the Arab world" by 1989. In 1989, Egypt was re-admitted as a full member to the Arab League and the League's headquarters were moved to their original location in Cairo.