Death plunge of Egyptian billionaire who 'spied for Israel'

Ashraf Marwan, son-in-law of Egypt's late President Nasser, was named three years ago by Israeli officials as a source for the country's intelligence service Mossad.

Scotland Yard are treating the 62-year-old's death as "unexplained".

It is thought he fell from a window balcony in his fourth-floor flat on Wednesday afternoon.

Mr Marwan, who was married to Mr Nasser's daughter Mona, was a former shareholder in Chelsea Football Club and had lived in the UK for 25 years after retiring from Egyptian government service in the late 1970s.

His widow was due to arrive in the UK from Egypt yesterday.

It is understood that Mr Marwan's death is not being treated as suspicious, but it will prompt a host of conspiracy theories in the Middle East.

Officers are believed to be contacting his GP after it was suggested that he had recently been diagnosed with a serious illness.

Some members of London's Arab community think he may have committed suicide.

Essam Abdel Samad, the head of the Union of Egyptians in Europe, said he had spoken to Mr Marwan's maid, who said she was the only other person in the flat in the exclusive St James's area in Central London.

"She said she was working in the kitchen and he was in his office and the first thing she knew was when someone came to the door and said he had fallen," Mr Samad told an Egyptian TV station.

Egypt's MENA news agency quoted a source close to the family as saying Mr Marwan suffered from balance problems recently and had been using a cane.

"A friend who is a member of the Egyptian expatriate community in Britain was on his way to visit him and saw him on the balcony talking on his mobile phone. Then he saw him fall after he lost his balance," the source said.

Mr Marwan voiced concerns that he would be assassinated after he was accused of being an agent during the Yom Kippur war.

The son of a military officer in Nasser's presidential guard, he joined the Egyptian army after gaining a degree in chemical engineering. He later worked as an assistant to Nasser and after his death in 1970, became a political and security adviser to his successor Anwar Sadat.

In the 1970s, Mr Marwan was head of Egypt's military industry complex before retiring and moving to the UK.

Israeli media claimed that on the eve of the war in October 1973, Mr Marwan told Mossad that Egypt and Syria were about to attack Israel.

Mr Marwan reportedly first walked into the Israeli embassy in London in 1969 and volunteered to give information but was turned down. He was later recruited by Mossad.

Military historian Gad Shimron, a former Mossad officer, said: "We know now, from testimony given by Israeli spymasters and made public years after the Yom Kippur war that Marwan was the man who tipped off the Mossad."

He said Mr Marwan gave the warning just hours before the Egyptian attacks on Israeli force on the east bank of the Suez canal but Israel decided not to order a mobilisation.

He added: "Later, the chief of Israeli military intelligence justified the inaction by saying Marwan was suspected of being a double agent planted by the Egyptians."

Mr Marwan was identified as an agent in the book Eve of Destruction by Vanity Fair writer Harold Bloom.

His death will shock some of Britain's wealthiest community.

His associates included former Chelsea chairman Ken Bates, arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, the late Tiny Rowland and Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi.

He is survived by his wife, two sons, Gamal and Ahmed, and five grandchildren.