Rifaat el-Mahgoub

Rifaat el-Mahgoub (also: "Rif'at al-Mahjub")(AR: رفعت المحجوب) was speaker of the Egyptian Parliament and a member of the ruling National Democratic Party. He was assassinated by Islamist militants while in his car on the streets of Cairo in 12 October, 1990.

Born April 23, 1926, in Damietta, el-Mahgoub took a law degree from Cairo University in 1949 before pursuing advanced studies at the University of Paris in France. He returned to Egypt following the revolution in his home country, taking a series of teaching positions at Cairo University, eventually becoming dean of the College of Politics and Economics in 1971. [Egyptian Supreme Court of Cassation-Rifaat el-Mahgoub biography page (in Arabic),Accessible at http://www.scc.gov.eg/gwa2z%20eldawla/ga2ezat%20eldawla%20eltakdereya/ga2ezat%20eldawla%20eltakdereya-elom%20egtmaaeya/legan-elom%20egtmaeya-refaat%20elmahgob.htm accessed Oct. 20 2007] , [Arab republic of egypt the people's assembly http://www.parliament.gov.eg/EPA/en/Levels.jsp?levelid=98&levelno=3&parentlevel=80.]

The next year, he was tapped by the new Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat for the first in a series of ministerial posts. By 1975 he was deputy prime minister, five years later, Sadat was assassinated by Islamist militants. el Mahgoub outlived his political patron by less than a decade before being assassinated by militants. Before his assassination, he had been the People's Assembely speaker from June 23,1984 until his death in 1990.

After the assassination, there was some suspicion that el-Mahgoub had been killed by mistake and that the real target had been the new Interior Minister, Abd al-Halim Musa, whose car had been in the same place minutes before. [Hopwood, D. Egypt, Politics and Society, 1945-1984, pp. 188-189] El-Mahgoub's alleged killers were captured and confessed; their convictions were however overturned when it emerged in court that their confessions had been obtained by torture.

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