42 Facts About Hussein Salem

Hussein Salem was an Egyptian businessman, co-owner of the East Mediterranean Gas Company, and ally and advisor to former president Hosni Mubarak.

Hussein Salem was the chairman and CEO of HKS Group, a hospitality company that operates Maritim Jolie Ville Resort in Sharm El Sheikh.

Hussein Salem was described as "one of the most secretive businessmen in Egypt", a mogul, and Mubarak's close confidant.

Hussein Salem was known as the "Father of Sharm El Sheikh" due to his resort development activities.

Hussein Salem had five half-siblings from his father's first wife, but was not responsible for them, most of whom were older than Salem.

Some sources say this was a rumor Hussein Salem allegedly spread in order to help him secure future business deals with the Bedouin tribes of the southern Sinai Peninsula.

The only known relation Hussein Salem had with the Bedouin was through marriage; his half-sibling Samiha married into the Abaydah tribe of Ismailia and Sinai.

Hussein Salem graduated from the Heliopolis Public High School, but had to repeat his senior year.

Shortly after receiving his degree, one of Hussein Salem's relatives secured a job for him as a clerk in the Textile Support Fund, which then-president Gamal Abdel Nasser had established to alleviate high unemployment rates, particularly among the youth.

Hussein Salem enrolled Khaled into Saint George, a private British school in Heliopolis, an education that Salem had to frequently borrow money to pay for.

The CEO believes Hussein Salem was supervising arms deals to help nationalist struggles against European colonialism in North Africa, in line with Nasser's foreign policy at the time.

In Casablanca Hussein Salem befriended Amin Howeidi who served as Egypt's ambassador to Morocco at the time.

Hussein Salem began cultivating relationships with the high-ranking staff of the Egyptian embassy in Iraq, particularly Amin Yousri the embassy's press-attache and Ibrahim Yousri the embassy's second secretary.

Al-Ahram Weekly editor Karem Yehia states that the Yousris claim Hussein Salem was a "likable" person, but not "intellectually sophisticated".

Amin Yousri claims Hussein Salem cultivated good relationships with other Egyptian embassy employees by helping them buy Mercedes vehicles at low interest rates offered by the Iraqi Central Bank.

Relations between Howeidi and Hussein Salem deteriorated following Nasser's death in 1970 and the succession of Anwar Sadat to the presidency afterward.

Nonetheless, Hussein Salem lost his job in the Intelligence Directorate along with its perks.

Unhappy at the loss of the prestige and perks of his former intelligence job, Hussein Salem decided to move to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates in 1972 where he became CEO of the Arab Emirates Trade Company, an importer of food supplies for UAE.

Hussein Salem was set up there by former Egyptian economy minister Hassan Abbas Zaki, an economic adviser to the president of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed, at the time.

Hussein Salem had still managed to maintain good relations with Emirati officials, but nonetheless left the UAE that same year.

The primary reason behind Hussein Salem's departure was not linked to the political situation between the two countries, however.

Hussein Salem returned to Egypt following his business ventures in the UAE.

For two years Hussein Salem lived in his old apartment in Cairo's affluent Heliopolis neighborhood.

Hussein Salem reportedly kept his other business ventures private while working in the government.

That same year, Hussein Salem became CEO of the Egyptian American Transportation Company, established in Delaware with a branch in Cairo.

Hussein Salem claimed the Egyptian government found no evidence of foul play on the part of the company during its year-long investigation of the incident.

Hussein Salem paid an $8 million fine to The Pentagon in 1984 to settle the case.

However, Amin Yousri would later discover through a memo sent from the Egyptian embassy to the Foreign Ministry in Cairo that Hussein Salem actually paid the Pentagon a much larger figure than was publicly announced.

The memo mentioned that Hussein Salem's lawyers reached a $60 million settlement with the US government.

Sadat was assassinated in 1981 and was succeeded, later that year, by his vice president Hosni Mubarak who Hussein Salem had befriended and worked with in previous years.

That year, Hussein Salem had commissioned the construction of a very large hotel called the Jolie Ville in that city.

High-ranking officials, including Abdel Moneim Said, the governor-general of South Sinai, and Hamid Khodeir, a local council member of the nearby city of el-Tor, claim Hussein Salem gained contracts for the land along the southern Sinai coast due to his close friendships with Mubarak and his son Gamal.

From 1987 until the early 21st-century, Hussein Salem had established tourism empire in Sinai, owning several hotels.

The local Bedouins who lived along the southern Sinai coast privately criticized Hussein Salem for ignoring their community by not building any projects in the local areas.

In 1996, Hussein Salem sold most of his shares in the new refinery company, Midor, and made a substantial profit.

Hussein Salem fled Egypt on 3 February 2011 during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 to Spain, a country in which he held dual citizenship.

Hussein Salem was accused by Egyptian authorities of corruption on charges he illegally gained public funds by obtaining a monopoly on the sale of gas to Israel, and as a result, squandering $714 million in public funds by selling Egyptian natural gas to Israel at below market prices.

Additionally, Egyptian investigators alleged that Hussein Salem was permitted by former President Mubarak to buy a large piece of valuable land on the Red Sea coast for development from the Egyptian government at a large discount.

In exchange, prosecutors allege that Hussein Salem gave Mubarak and his family five luxury villas worth about $4.5 million, including a 161,000-square-foot seaside estate in Sharm el-Sheikh.

In 2016, Hussein Salem signed a deal to make it possible for him and his family to return to Egypt without the risk of facing prosecution.

The deal required that Hussein Salem give up 75 percent of his wealth.

However, Hussein Salem resided in Spain until his death due to the Spanish authorities' refusal to extradite him.