Rifaat el-Mahgoub (Arabic: رفعت المحجوب, IPA: [ˈɾefʕæt elmæħˈɡuːb]) (April 23, 1926 – 12 October, 1990) was an important Egyptian politician, speaker of the Egyptian Parliament, and a member of the ruling National Democratic Party.
Born in Damietta, el-Mahgoub took a law degree from Cairo University in 1949 before pursuing advanced studies at the University of Paris in France. He returned to Egypt following the revolution in his home country, taking a series of teaching positions at Cairo University, eventually becoming dean of the faculty of Economics and Political Sciences in 1971.[1],[2]
The next year, he was appointed by President Anwar al-Sadat for the first in a series of ministerial posts. In 1975 he acquired the job of deputy prime minister; on June 23, 1984, he became parliamentary speaker, Sadat having three years previously been murdered by Islamist militants. In October 1990 el-Mahgoub met a similar fate: he was shot dead while in his car on the streets of Cairo.
Ahmad Isma'il 'Uthman Saleh, Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Naggar, Shawqi Salama Mustafa Atiya and Mohamed Hassan Tita were all renditioned from Albania to Egypt, with the cooperation of the United States, accused of participating in the assassination, as well as a later plot against the Khan el-Khalili market in Cairo.[3] Their capture and torture were listed as the main reasons for the US embassies bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.[3]