Shams Badran

Shams Al Din Badran (Arabic: شمس الدين بدران; 19 April 1929 – 28 November 2020) was an Egyptian government official. He served as minister of defence of Egypt during Gamal Abdel Nasser's era and the unsuccessful Six-Day War of 1967. He was removed from his post during the war and later imprisoned. After his release he married a British woman and lived in "self-imposed exile" in the United Kingdom.

Shams Badran
Minister of Defence
In office
1966–1967
PresidentGamal Abdel Nasser
Preceded byAbdel Wahab Al Bishri
Succeeded byAmin Howeidi
Personal details
Born(1929-04-19)19 April 1929
Giza, Kingdom of Egypt
Died28 November 2020(2020-11-28) (aged 91)
Plymouth, United Kingdom
Alma materMilitary academy

Early life and education

Badran was born on 19 April 1929.[1][2] He attended a military academy and graduated in 1948.[1] He participated in the 1947–1949 Palestine war and earned the Gold Medal of Merit from Farouk of Egypt as he fought at Al-Faluja.[2] He was later sent on a military scholarship to France.[2]

Career

Badran was the head of Egypt's military security services in the mid-1960s.[3] He also served as the office manager of Field Marshal Abdul Hakim Amer under Gamal Abdel Nasser's presidency.[4] Badran was one of the top aides of Amer.[5] The Muslim Brotherhood accused him and Amer of responsibility for the torture of Brotherhood leaders who had been arrested due to their alleged plans to assassinate Nasser in 1965.[6][7]

Badran was appointed minister of defence in Fall 1966, a few months before the Six-Day War in June 1967, replacing Abdel Wahab Al Bishri in the post.[1][8] Amer had supported Badran's appointment.[9] Badran was also named as the chief of Nasser's cabinet the same year.[10] On 25 May 1967, Badran visited Moscow and met senior Soviet officials, including then Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin, to secure their support regarding a perceived Israeli threat.[5] Badran resigned from office during the Six-Day War, and was replaced by Amin Howeidi as defence minister.[11]

Following the defeat of the Egypt in the Six-Day War Badran was considered as a successor to the President Gamal Abdel Nasser.[12]

Conviction

Badran along with other senior officials, including Amer, was detained on 25 August 1967 on charges of plotting against Nasser.[13][14] However, they were tried for their roles during the six day war in 1967, including for Badran charges of torturing members of the Muslim Brotherhood.[8][15] Badran appeared in court in two separate trials.[8] He and Salah Nasr, former chief of intelligence and also part of Amer's faction, were convicted and sentenced to hard labour due to their roles in the defeat.[16]

Following his release from prison by president Anwar Sadat on 23 May 1974, Badran left Egypt and went to live in London.[17] Badran published part of his memoirs in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa in 2014.[15]

Personal life

Badran married his first wife, Muna Rushdie, on 7 June 1962. The couple had one daughter named Hiba; they divorced in January 1989 by a court decision, as he had been absent for three years. Rushdie worked at The American University in Cairo.[17] In the 1970s he married a British woman with whom he had two children. Badran lived with his family in "self-imposed exile" in the United Kingdom, though one of his children moved to Saudi Arabia and another to the United States.[15]

On 28 November 2020, Badran died in the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust; however, he had asked to be buried in Egypt.[15]

References
  1. Panayiotis J. Vatikiotis (1978). Nasser and His Generation. New York: Croom Helm. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-85664-433-7.
  2. "رحيل شمس بدران.. آخر وزراء جمهورية ما وراء الشمس". Al Jazeera (in Arabic). 1 December 2020.
  3. Gilles Kepel (1985). Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Los Angeles and Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-520-05687-9.
  4. Abdou Mubasher (7–13 June 2007). "The road to Naksa". Al Ahram Weekly. 848. Archived from the original on 25 March 2013.
  5. Richard Bordeaux Parker, ed. (1996). The Six-Day War: A Retrospective. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-8130-1383-1.
  6. "Your torture still shows on our bodies, Brothers tell Nasser's defense minister". Al-Masry Al-Youm. 3 July 2012. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
  7. John Sainsbury (2 August 2013). "Army-Muslim Brotherhood feud has dire consequences for Egypt's future". The Star. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  8. Hamied Ansari (1986). Egypt: The Stalled Society. New York: SUNY Press. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-88706-183-7.
  9. "Egypt-Internal Relations". Mongabay. Retrieved 31 January 2013.
  10. Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyid Marsot (2007). A History of Egypt: From the Arab Conquest to the Present. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-521-87717-6.
  11. "Nasser picks new aide". Eugene Register Guard. Associated Press. 21 July 1967. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
  12. Laura M. James (2006). Nasser at War. Arab Images of the Enemy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 124. doi:10.1057/9780230626379. ISBN 978-0-230-62637-9.
  13. "Ex-Egyptian vice president arrested". The Evening Independent. 4 September 1967. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
  14. Hicham Bou Nassif (Autumn 2013). "Wedded to Mubarak: The Second Careers and Financial Rewards of Egypt's Military Elite, 1981-2011". The Middle East Journal. 67 (4): 510. doi:10.3751/67.4.11. JSTOR 43698073. S2CID 144651187.
  15. "وفاة وزير الحربية المصري الأسبق شمس بدران في لندن". The Independent (in Arabic). 1 December 2020.
  16. Michael C. Desch (2008). Power and Military Effectiveness: The Fallacy of Democratic Triumphalism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-8018-8801-4.
  17. Mustafa el Fiqi (25 September 2008). "Shams Badran". Al-Masry Al-Youm. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
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