Intelligence papers never die

Other Voices

By Ahmed Al-Sarraf

IN THE mid-1950s Ismail El-Sayyed escaped from the Egyptian prison when Gamal AbdelNasser was in power in Egypt and arrived in Kuwait via Basra. He stayed in the country for more than half a century, died and was buried here a few years ago.

I met him in the late 1970s. At that time he was the owner of a big contracting company. He had succeeded in his work and made much wealth, thanks to the support of the Muslim Brotherhood from the moment he set foot on the soil of Kuwait.

I have written articles about him or about what he told me related to the scandals of the Muslim Brotherhood because at a later stage he had lost confidence in this organization.

I was an employee of a bank when he asked me to join his business, but I rejected his very tempting offer and explained to him why I had turned him down. He was surprised at my frankness and with time I became the source of his confidence. He was investing his money with me and later even registered his big house in Surrah in my name.

Whenever we meet, in front of everyone he would say (in a seriousness and funny way) that I am the only person he trusts despite all the difference in our age, thought, affiliations and so.

While he was in Kuwait, for 40 years after his escape from Egypt, he succeeded in obtaining a presidential pardon from President (Anwar el-) Sadat, followed by another amnesty from President Hosni Mubarak.

When he felt he was nearing his death, he decided to visit Egypt for a few days to bid farewell to the rest of his family. His immediate family including his wife left for Egypt before him as the surprise awaited him. As soon as he presented his passport, an intelligence officer took him to somewhere and he disappeared for more than ten hours before returning to his family, terribly exhausted.

After he returned to Kuwait, he told me what happened to him with the Egyptian intelligence. How they took

Al-Sarraf

him to an underground building, interrogated him and he produced the two presidential pardons. The officer, who was interrogating him, said to him: “Presidents die and the coups come and go, but the intelligence papers, neither go nor die.

I remembered that phrase when 80 Kuwaitis submitted an application to the Ministry of Social Affairs to proclaim the ‘Kuwait Human Friendship Society’. The application was accepted and the names were sent to the Ministry of Interior to ensure that there is nothing to prevent any of the founders from establishing a ‘charity’, even if they have not paid fines on traffic violations.

The Interior’s search has led to removing 15 names from the list, including my name. My absence among the founders, with my all respect for them, may make some lose enthusiasm to continue the idea.

By asking more here and there, making dozens of calls and resorting to friends and influential people, we succeeded in reaching the deep state, whose archive showed that we committed a violation in January 2000, more than 18 years ago -- violation of putting up a billboard. We had other contacts and it was a surprise that such a case like this should have come to an end by time.

After a long delay, the ‘deep state’ agreed that such an old case should not prevent me from participating in the foundation of the Society, and here I remembered the phrase of the intelligence officer who was interrogating Ismail ElSayyed, that the world is turning topsyturvy and the leaders are dying, but the intelligence papers remain alive forever.

Our concern to prove we are clean made us forget to inform some of the founders, who have minor offenses, such as the absence of fingerprints in criminal evidence, to be with us in the list of the founders, and I present my sincere apology to them, and they will inevitably be with us in the Society as good and active members.

We sincerely thank the Minister of Social Affairs and to all those who have helped us, especially the artist and global director Sulaiman Al Bassam for his material and moral role which cannot be forgotten in facilitating founding this Society and ensuring its success in future.

e-mail:

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