Khalid Abdel Nasser (Arabic:خالد عبد الناصر, also spelled Khalid 'Abd al-Nasir; 13 December 1949 – 15 September 2011)[1] was the eldest son ofEgypt'ssecondPresidentGamal Abdel Nasser and his wifeTahia Kazem.
Abdel Nasser was born in 1949.[2] He was a graduate ofCairo University andCambridge University where he studied civil engineering.[2]
Abdel Nasser's public profile became pronounced in his early adulthood on account of his often troubled relationship with Egyptian presidentAnwar Sadat, his father's successor.Time Magazine stated that when Sadat asked to acquire Gamal Abdel Nasser's bulletproof limousine, Khalid refused and after a heated argument with Sadat, he set the car on fire, destroying it.[3]
In later years, Abdel Nasser became a vocal critic of Sadat, and his presidential successor,Hosni Mubarak, both of whose policies had diverged significantly from those of Gamal Abdel Nasser. In 1988, he was accused of co-founding (with Egyptian diplomatMahmoud Noureddin [ar]) a secretleftist organization,Egypt's Revolution [ar] (Thawrat Miṣr), aNasserist group that violently opposed the 1979Camp David Accords between Egypt andIsrael.[4] The Mubarak government sought thedeath penalty in a case which accused Abdel Nasser of trying to overthrow the Egyptian government, and of involvement in a spate ofassassinations and bombings. The case eventually became a test of strength between the judiciary and the executive when judges threw out much of the case, accusing police and prosecutors of collusion intorturing the defendants.[5]
The case also created anger among many Egyptians who sympathized with Abdel Nasser because of thegeneral anti-Israeli sentiment at the time, the fact that he was the son of Gamal Abdel Nasser, a popular figure in the country, and reports that the evidence was provided by American intelligence. Abdel Nasser had escaped toYugoslavia during the trial, but was acquitted anyway.[6]
In the mid-1990s followinginternational sanctions againstIraq, Abdel Nasser received $16.6 million worth ofSaddam Hussein's oil vouchers in theOil-for-Food Programme, more than anyone else in Egypt, according to the list of beneficiaries.[7] He later became a professor atCairo University's Faculty of Engineering, a job which he held for the remainder of his life.[1]
In February 2011, during theEgyptian Revolution of 2011, Abdel Nasser joined pro-democracy demonstrations inTahrir Square againstMubarak and his regime.[8] According toThe Telegraph, Abdel Nasser's participation "was seen as helping to give the revolution a posthumous stamp of approval from an iconic Egyptian hero".[6] Later that year, on 30 August he fell into acoma ending in his death at age 61 in aCairo hospital on 15 September.[1] He is survived by three children.[6]