Tale of Saeed Ramadan
How the plot unwinds?
In my article of last Monday, I was pondering about the biography of Tariq Ramadan and the secret behind the strength and ability of his father, who was working for Hassan Al-Banna (founder of the Muslim Brotherhood), who had managed to migrate to Switzerland and acquire the Swiss citizenship, which was and is still the most difficult to acquire among the nations of the world.
Yesterday, one of my friends who read the article helped me with the answer.
Saeed Ramadan – the father of Tariq – was 2 years old when Hassan Al-Banna established the movement in 1928. Tariq’s father became a member of the movement during his prime youth and over time became the personal secretary of AlBanna.
This enabled him to have contacts with the family of AlBanna and the girl Wafaa Al-Banna fell in love with the handsome and ambitious young man.
That marriage opened the doors of heaven and lay bare the world’s treasures in front of Saeed. With time, it was but normal and a formality before he went on to become one of the leaders of the organization.
He chose to be one of the members of the inner circle of the organization in Europe and chose to live in Geneva, Switzerland and from there to Europe. He founded the Islamic Society of Munich in Germany and headed it from 1958 to 1968. He also participated in the establishment of the Muslim World League, which is currently headed by Al-Qaradawi.
In his documentary, MI6 Fifty Years of Special Operations, the famous British historian and author, Stephen Dorril, mentioned accurate details about Saeed Ramadan’s work for the world’s intelligence services.
He said after the outbreak of the conflict between Muhammad Najib and Jamal Abdulnasser in 1954, which resulted in Nasser’s victory, and the success of the latter in the evacuation of the British from Egypt, the British intelligence began to think of a coup d’état to overthrow Nasser and thought the Muslim Brotherhood organization was the best task force to implement this scheme.
Here, the name of Saeed Ramadan, who joined the organization in 1940 popped up and later became an agent of the British, the Americans and the Swiss intelligence.
From Geneva, the counter-movement was launched. There was also coordination with a number of other members of the organization who sought refuge in Saudi Arabia to organize a coup against the regime in Egypt. Abdulnasser had learned some of what Saeed Ramadan was doing, as the book says, so he withdrew his Egyptian nationality.
After moving to live in Switzerland, the Swiss intelligence was aware of what Saeed was doing for the Western intelligence and that their activities and coordination were directed against the Nasser regime.
Therefore, according to the book, based on the Swiss archives, their intelligence services allowed him to operate in the belief his group was not hostile to the West, but is fighting against the regime of Nasser which was hostile to the West.
The writer says Saeed coordinated with Hassan Al-Hudhaibi, the new Muslim Brotherhood leader, through Trevor Evans, the British embassy’s eastern adviser, to plot the assassination of Nasser on Oct 26, 1954, while delivering a speech in Alexandria to celebrate the signing of the Agreement of the British Evacuation.
Mahmoud Abdul Latif, a member of the group, fired several bullets at Nasser but failed to hit the target, according to Stephen Durril, the first clash between Nasser and the Brotherhood.
The writer goes on to say Saeed Ramadan was not a layman after moving to Europe. He became the Muslim Brotherhood’s link with the Western intelligence services.
He has worked with Yusuf Nada, the owner of Al Taqwa Bank, and became the strong financial arm of the Brotherhood, and the global financial strength of the Group.
Thus, we see that our question in our previous article was necessary to get to know some of the biography of the father of preachers Tariq Ramadan and I was wondering about is laid to rest.