Cairo - Ashraf Marwan, the Egyptian billionaire who died aged 62 Wednesday in London was the third Egyptian to have jumped off a balcony in London. One young Egyptian blogger wrote Friday there "must be something very appealing about a London balcony which tempts famous Egyptians to throw themselves off it."
Six years ago - also in June - the famous Egyptian actress Soaud Hosni allegedly threw herself off the balcony of a residential tower in Maida Vale, North London.
In the mid-1970s, Leithy Nassif, the former head of the presidential guard under the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadatthe threw himself off a balcony in the very same tower in Maida Vale.
The common link between the three is that they all had intelligence links and were rumoured to have been writing their memoirs at the time of their alleged suicides.
Nassif had helped Sadat stage his palace coup following the death of his predecessor Gamal Abdel-Nasser, when Sadat arrested all Nasser's men in 1971.
Souad Hosni, the idol of Arab cinema, was allegedly employed by the Egyptian intelligence in the 1960s, something which had continued to ruin her reputation after the fall of those who supported her.
Her last 10 years were spent in London, where she suffered deep depression and impoverishment. Thus, at the time of her death in 2001, it was said, she was considering finding a publisher for her memoirs to raise money.
Then came the death of Ashraf Marwan this week, which prompted every Egyptian media outlet Thursday and Friday to revisit all conspiracy theories concerning the death of Egyptians in London.
Marwan's career and connections represent a feast for anyone interested in conspiracy theories.
Having married Nasser's daughter shortly before the late Egyptian president died in 1970, he became President Sadat's personal political aide in the early 1970s, and later head of Egypt's Military Industry Organization before moving to London in the 1980s where he became a billionaire.
In 2004, retired major general Eli Zeira, head of military intelligence during the Yom Kippur War, had alleged that Marwan was recruited by Israeli intelligence, Mossad, a year before Nasser died.
Zeira claimed that while he was a close associate of Sadat, Marwan continued to provide Israel with information well after the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
As if espionage for Mossad was not enough, Marwan's name was also linked with claims of illicit weapons trading in the Middle East. He was also rumoured to be a close associate of the maverick Mohamed al- Fayad, owner of Harrods and father of Dodi, Princess Diana's companion who died with her in a car crash in Paris.
Marwan was said to be the principal player in the Tiny Rowland versus al-Fayed war over the House of Fraser which owned Harrods.
In his book Who Killed Diana? Simon Regan an investigative journalist and author of biographies of Prince Charles and Princess Margaret, dedicated a special chapter of his book to Marwan.
Regan says: "Cold journalistic logic brings one to the inevitable conclusion that Ashraf Marwan made the most perfect double agent for nearly all of the Mid-eastern and Western espionage agencies.
The "strong circumstantial evidence is that Marwan could not possibly have moved freely in London or Paris (in the particular activities he was known to be engaged in) unless he enjoyed absolute immunity, or, at the very least, official protection," he says.
