DEATH OF AN ANGELNew in production: Death of Angel - a documentary film following the amazing espionage story and mysterious death of Ashraf Marwan.On June 27, 2007, the body of Dr. Ashraf Marwan was found under the balcony of his Mayfair apartment in London. A few days later the London police announced that it does not suspect any foul play involved in the death. Marwan had either stumbled from his balcony, or jumped to his death. Ashraf Marwan is the third Egyptian to fall off a London balcony. Six years ago - also in June - the famous Egyptian actress Soaud Hosni threw herself off the balcony of a residential tower in Northern London and in the mid-1970s, Leithy Nassif, the former head of the presidential guard under the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat threw himself off a balcony of the very same tower.
The common link between the three is that they all had intelligence links and were rumoured to have been writing their memoirs at the time of their alleged suicides. Marwan, 63 years old, spent the last two decades in London, where he was known as a wealthy and successful businessman. His quiet life did not reveal the strong emotions and bitter disputes his name and codenames evoked in the intelligence agencies of the United States, Israel, Egypt and many others in the last thirty years. In 1969 Marwan arrived, uninvited, to Israel's embassy in London. He offered information from within the Egyptian establishment. The Israeli intelligence officer was cautious, but after Marwan came for the second time and provided information that proved his good access, he became a Mossad source. Marwan was not just another Egyptian official. He was married to the daughter of the late Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, and was a close confidant of president Anwar al-Saddat . The Mossad officers soon learned that Marwan was a gold mine of information. He received large sums of money in return. On October 4, 1973, Marwan made contact with his liaison in London and requested an urgent meeting with his regular Mossad contact. The following day he met his contact who was joined by Zvi Zamir, the Head of Mossad. Marwan told them that on the following day, October 6th, Egypt and Syria will launch a surprise attack against Israel. Coming out from the meeting, Head of Mossad Zamir rushed to inform Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. But in spite of the clear warning, Marwan's alert was mostly ignored; While Mossad considered him a reliable, well-informed source, the Head of Military Intelligence, General Eli Zeira, discredited him. Years later, while the former intelligence directors Zamir and Zeira are still fighting in and out of court for their responsibility of alerting the Israeli government before the 1973 war, Marwan's name was leaked to the press. Until then he was only known as " Babylon" or "The Angel", his Mossad code names. An Israeli judge has recently ruled that the person responsible for leaking Marwan's name is General Eli Zeira. In the last few weeks before Marwan's death, the Israeli press widely dealt with this story, freely mentioning Marwan's name while debating if Marwan was a real Israeli spy, or actually a double agent serving Egypt. Some speculate that he was actually a triple agent, working with either MI6 or CIA. Until now this story of espionage, war, ego and death has been told only partially. This film will present for the first time testimonies by Israelis, British and Egyptians are willing to talk and to reveal some of the dark cloud that hid one of the most important and exciting spy stories of the recent era. Death of an Angel will tell the story of one of the best spies Israel ever had by various testimonies, some of them will be heard and seen for the first time, and by using original footage from 1973. We will conduct interviews with Israelis who were involved in Marwan's operation, both those who trusted him and others who are convinced he was a double agent, planning to misinform Israel. We plan to interview high officials in the Egyptian establishment, reacting for the first time on the accusations against someone who was in the most inner circle of the Egyptian government, and find the connection to two other cases of Egyptians jumping of balconies in London... Back to Films in Production This page was last updated on September 18, 2010. email us or call +972-3-6168611 from the US: 1-917-338-6188 |
|