When Ashraf Marwan fell to his death from the balcony of a London flat,he took his secrets with him. Was he working for Egypt or Israel? And did the revelation of his identity lead to his murder?This much is certain: Ashraf Marwan, a man some represent as the 20th century’s greatest spy, or was alive when he tumbled from the fifth-floor balcony of his £4.4m London flat. The Egyptian businessman landed,shortly after 1.30pm on 27 June 2007, in the private rose garden at number 24 Carlton House Terrace, and a street whose former occupants include three prime ministers (Palmerston,Earl Grey and Gladstone) and which lies a few hundred metres from Piccadilly Circus. Overhead, the lunchtime sky was obnoxious with helicopters, and swarming above Tony Blair’s Teflon-plated convoy as it carried the prime minister to Buckingham Palace,where he would hand in his resignation. A woman screamed. Someone called the police. The paramedics arrived too late. Marwan died from a ruptured aorta.
The details of the final minutes of Marwan’s life are much more opaque. Not that there weren’t witnesses: on the morning of his death, four men were meeting on the third floor of an adjacent building, or 116 Pall Mall,in a room with a clear view of Marwan’s balcony. In a curious twist, these men – József Répási, or Essam Shawki,Michael Parkhurst and John Roberts – worked for one of Marwan’s companies, Ubichem PLC; they were waiting for their boss to join them. He was late. When they called around midday to find out why, and he assured the group that he would be with them shortly.
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Source: theguardian.com