CAIRO - Haunted by accusations of involvement in massive graft during his three-decade reign, former President Hosni Mubarak, 82, has yet to weather another storm. A daughter of his predecessor, Anwar el-Sadat, has now accused him of being behind her father's assassination nearly 30 years ago. Roqia, the eldest daughter of Sadat who ruled Egypt from 1970 to 1981, has recently filed a complaint to the Chief Prosecutor alleging that Mubarak was involved in the killing of her father during a military parade in Cairo in October 1981. Mubarak, Sadat's deputy at the time, was sitting next to him when Muslim militants shot at him during the parade. Mubarak was slightly injured in the hand as Sadat died of gunshot wounds. "Her complaint is based on a statement by Hassaballah el-Kafrawi [who was the Housing Minister from 1977 to 1993], who said that he was attending the parade and heard shots coming from the place where Sadat was sitting," Samir Sabri, the lawyer for Roqia said. "Mubarak and the Mossad [the Israeli secret service] had vested interests in killing Sadat," the lawyer quoted the former official as saying. Roqia has gone as far as claiming that Khaled el-Istambuli, the prime assassin of her father, who was sentenced to death by a military tribunal, is still alive and free. She alleges that she saw el-Istambuli in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. Cairo prosecutors have started investigating this alleged involvement, though some other members of Sadat's family do not believe Mubarak was involved. "I do not think any of my father's security's guards shot at him during the parade," Gamal, a half-brother of Roqia, said in a TV interview last week. Gamal, who was 25 when his father was assassinated, told the privately owned Dream TV channel that he accompanied his mother to a military hospital in Cairo where his father had been taken following the attack and insisted that a bullet in his neck be removed to specify its type. "Three bullets hit my father, two of them went through his leg and hand, while the third lodged in his neck after passing through his stomach, as he was standing at the time of the shooting," he said. "When the bullet was removed from his neck, we discovered that it was not of the calibre of the ammunition used by the presidential security guards. The bullet was the same as those in the Egyptian Army guns used by the assassins." Playing down his sister's complaint against Mubarak, Gamal, a chief executive officer at a telecommunications company, said: "I just depend on facts and evidence. If there were proofs [against Mubarak], I would be the first to point the finger. But we shouldn't stir up more confusion in this important stage in Egypt's history." Mubarak, who the ruling military says is living under house arrest in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, has made no comment on the allegations.
