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Did he fall or was he pushed?

The curious case of the spy who fell to his death

James Forsyth

Wednesday, 15th August 2007

The death of a double agent raises many questions

When a man falls to his death from a balcony, some cynics wonder: was he pushed? When that man happens to be the most infamous spy in the history of the modern Middle East, it’s the first question on everyone’s lips.

On 27 June the body of Ashraf Marwan was found on the pavement below his flat in Carlton House Terrace, one of London’s most expensive streets, which overlooks the Mall and St James’s Park. Marwan was an astonishingly well-connected Egyptian, the son-in-law of the late Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president and hero of pan-Arabism, and the consigliere of Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat. After Sadat’s assassination in 1981 he moved to London where he quickly established himself as a key player in the business world, in particular as an ally of Tiny Rowland in his bitter struggle with Mohamed Al Fayed over the ownership of Harrods. He was thought to have a personal fortune of £100 million.

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Labour’s U-turn on social housing for non-immigrants is welcome but too late

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle says that metropolitan liberal ideology is too deeply ingrained in local councils, social services and the judiciary to be overturned by one panic measure driven by Labour’s sudden fear of the BNP

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Cass Sunstein — co-author of the hugely influential Nudge and an adviser to President Obama — unveils his new theory of ‘group polarisation’, and explains why, when like-minded people spend time with each other, their views become not only more confident but more extreme

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