EXTRACT 11 FROM MY MEMOIR

The Spy Who Fell to Earth: My Relationship With the Secret Agent Who Rocked the Middle East

CHAPTER 6: MARWAN IS DEAD: CONTINUES

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The Metropolitan Police treat his death as suspicious, and soon, well-dressed detectives march into my tiny office. The first to stop by is Detective Constable Martin Woodroffe. We shake hands, and he hands me his business card, from which I gather that he belongs to Team 8 of the Specialist Crime Directorate at the Metropolitan Police. He is youngish and polite, very English in a striped suit. He asks questions, and I give answers. When I try to ask him about this or that, he goes all shifty, giving nothing away. But I gather that he is exploring three possibilities: that Marwan was murdered, that he jumped - although no suicide note has been found - or that he fell. Woodroffe is interested, so he tells me in many things about Ashraf Marwan, particularly in the book he was apparently working on, for which I have been the consultant. Apparently, the only existing draft of this book had mysteriously disappeared on the day Marwan plummeted from the balcony of his London flat. `Have you seen the book?’ Woodroffe Asks. `Do you have it on your computer?’'’ (He adds: `We might need to inspect your computers, but not now’). `No,’ I say, `I have never seen it.’ When I tell this to Woodroffe, it seems strange; I have been helping Marwan with it for months and years and have not even seen it once! `I just know it exists,’ I add, whereupon he shoots back: `And how do you know that?’ `How do I know that?’ I hear myself asking myself aloud before telling Woodroffe that in our telephone conversation, Marwan would always ask questions about the Yom Kippur War to help him with his text, and I had no reason to believe that he faked his questions. `That isn’t a proof that the book really existed,’ Woodroffe insists, to which I reluctantly agree.

He also wants to know about the planned meeting that I was supposed to have with Marwan. As he puts it, `Where exactly have you been around 1 p.m. on the day Marwan fell? Do you have witnesses to say that you have been where you have been?’ His question throws me off balance, and I feel my ears flush and sweat running down my back. It gets worse as I can see that Woodroffe can sense my stress. Ridiculous, I think. Grotesque! Does he really suspect that I pushed Marwan to his death? Woodroffe takes out a small plastic bag from his bag and holds it open. He tells me to drop in the original tape-recorded messages left by Marwan on my phone the day before he died. I also hand over to Woodroffe all the drafts of faxes I sent Marwan over the years and summaries of my conversations with him. Woodroffe stands up, we shake hands, and he leaves my office. When I shut the door behind him, I feel utterly exhausted. I put my head on the desk, and all I want to do is cry.

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That the police doubted whether Marwan worked on his memoirs hurt, as it portrayed me in a ridiculous light. For if there was no book, then what were all my stories about being Marwan’s consultant on his - by then non-existent- book that `disappeared,’ according to his family, on the day he fell to his death? Thus, after Marwan’s death, finding proof of the memoir’s existence became an obsession for me, and I embarked on yet another compulsive crusade to establish the truth behind Marwan’s book! I spent hours on the phone, conducting a massive investigation to see whether Marwan had visited archives and libraries to research a book. At first, it frustratingly yielded nothing, but finally, I made a breakthrough: I managed to locate a certain Mary Curry, a junior librarian at the Washington National Security Archives. I learned that she personally assisted Marwan during a visit there.

The National Archives building in Washington, D.C., where Ashraf Marwan researched for his memoir

I could not believe my luck, and I was as thrilled as I was on that day in Tel Aviv when I finally identified Ashraf Marwan as the mysterious Mossad spy. By January, I was ready with enough information to prove that, indeed, Marwan had been working on his memoir, and I wrote to DC Woodroffe:

8 January 2008

Dear Martin,

As requested, I attach Mary Curry's emails regarding Ashraf Marwan’s visit to the National Security Archives, Washington, in January and March 2007. These reports strengthen my point that Marwan was working on a book.

I have attached the following letter sent to me by Mary Curry, the Washington librarian:

We had no advance notice of [Ashraf Marwan’s] arrival; he simply walked in the door on January 23rd, 2007, and showed up again, unannounced, on March 20th, and returned on March 21st. In January, he filled out the name and address section of our Visitor Welcome Sheet and signed it on the back. He told me he wanted to research Egypt-Israel relations during the 1970s. He said he was writing a book about his life and was looking for background information. While I was showing him how to use the Digital National Security Archive, he mentioned casually that he had been the secretary to Anwar Sadat. I realized he was an important part of history and an eyewitness to many events. He looked at many documents. When Dr Marwan returned in March, he wanted to continue using the DNSA. He was interested in having his own subscription. He was using a cane when he visited us in January and March. After he left, I sent him an email thanking him for giving us two boxes of Godiva Chocolates.

Amidst all this, I got a letter from a certain Mr. Harding, a criminal lawyer representing the Marwan family:

Dear Dr Bregman

I confirm I have been instructed on behalf of the family of Dr Ashraf Marwan in relation to various matters but specifically relating to the inquest to be held by the Westminister coroner into the circumstances of Dr Marwan’s death. I anticipate this will take place early in the New Year. I have been provided with your contact details by Marwan’s eldest son, Gamal. He advises me that you had some contact with Dr Marwan in the weeks and days leading up to his death on 27 June. I am particularly anxious to meet if you want to discuss your contact and various related matters …

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I meet Mr. Harding and his assistant at their fancy offices at Kingsley Napley in Central London. They are nice and very English, offering tea and biscuits and explaining that the Westminster coroner, whose task was to establish what had happened to Marwan, seemed not to be in any hurry and was taking his time. As for the Marwan family, says the lawyer, `they are Moslem … they wouldn’t buy the suicide story’. The police inquiry, he adds, is `sluggish and so incompetent’ - so much so that he suspects that `someone has asked someone not to investigate it properly.’ The lawyer clearly thinks that the British authorities- for whom I know Marwan had spied too - are not keen to make this matter public. As for the missing memoir, the lawyer asks me the same questions the police did: `Has it existed? And who’s the publisher? And why don’t we have more than one copy?’ The bottom line is that in due course, the Marwan family’s lawyers would like me to appear before the coroner and say two things. First, that a meeting between Marwan and me had been scheduled; this, says Mr. Harding, would strengthen the view that Marwan did not commit suicide but perhaps was pushed off his balcony, as people who make plans to kill themselves do not usually arrange meetings for the next day, and they do not bother, as Marwan had done, to take down telephone numbers. Second, to talk about Marwan’s book that has disappeared and about which I - as Marwan’s consultant - am perhaps the only person who can comment. Maybe, reflects Mr. Harding aloud - and I can see that he does not believe it himself - there was something in the book that led to the killing; this would weaken the suicide option and strengthen the murder one, which is what the family hoped the coroner would decide had happened.

John Harding, who represented the Marwan family, believed that the police inquiry into the death of Marwan was `sluggish and incompetent.’

Years later, among the millions of emails leaked by WikiLeaks, I discovered the following email sent from the Metropolitan Police to Detective Edward Golian from the Major Crimes Division (Cold Case Squad), Montgomery County Police, Maryland, USA, who had tried to link the death of Marwan to another incident (the gunning down of the Israeli military attache Yosef Alon in Washington in 1973) and who had asked about Marwan’s book to see if there were any clues there:

Sir,

Martin Woodroffe is away at present, but I answer as the officer in charge of the Scotland Yard investigation into the death [of Ashraf Marwan] … Our investigation found no evidence or material which could have been considered to be Dr. Marwan’s memoir. Many people suggested that he was writing a memoir, but all efforts, including forensic analysis of his laptop computer, indicated that this was not the case.

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17 APRIL 2008

The police detectives come and go. This time it is DC John Johnson, whose main expertise is murder and criminal offences; he asks his questions, takes some notes, and leaves. And then, before long, it is Woodroffe again, accompanied by a Keith Bowen whose business card he hands me indicates that he is from the Homicide and Serious Crime Command - MITS at Belgravia Police Station. They have some more questions and ask me to sign yet another statement. I ask Woodroffe whether I should take precautions to protect myself, given that - if Ashraf was indeed murdered - there might be people out there who, as I put it to him, `might have some crazy ideas.’ As usual, he is evasive but says that he might have to visit my house to put taps on my phone line in case someone phones whom they might want to record.

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2010

It is now three years since Marwan’s mysterious death, and at last, the police investigation is over. Two separate murder squads, including Scotland Yard’s elite Specialist Crime Directorate, examined the case, and now it is down to William Dolman, the Westminster coroner, to decide what actually happened on the fateful day. He will conduct three days of deliberations, during which he will take evidence from the police, medics, friends, family, and colleagues before making up his mind. I dread having to testify in front of the Marwan family and am relieved when, on the first morning of the inquest, Woodroffe phones to say that, after all, I will not be asked to give evidence. Apparently, the coroner is only interested in the last twenty-four hours in Marwan’s life, and my role in it is, in any case, summarized in my signed statements to the police and the two tapes which are already with the coroner containing Marwan’s three messages he left on my answering machine the day before he died and a recording of our last conversation later on that afternoon. But before long, Woodroffe is back on the line; the family’s barrister, Mr. Evans, had insisted that my testimony that there was a book manuscript and that a meeting had been scheduled with Marwan the day before he died should be heard orally.

So the next morning I am at Horseferry Road Magistrates’ Court, visibly nervous, and when I catch sight of myself in a wall mirror I can see that my face is sickly white. At the court, I’m told that my testimony is scheduled for the afternoon, so I spend the entire day sitting in a tiny courtroom just behind Mona Nasser. From time to time, I glance at her as she listens attentively as witnesses describe how her husband was seen pacing the balcony, looking down, climbing up on a pot, over the balcony railings, and `walking’ into the air. Apparently, on the morning of his death, four men were meeting on the third floor of an adjacent building, 116 Pall Mall, in a room with a clear view of Marwan’s balcony. In a curious twist, these men worked for one of Marwan’s companies, Ubichem PLC, waiting for their boss, Marwan, to join them. He was late. When they called around midday to find out why, he assured the group that he would be with them shortly. Sitting with the window to his left, one of them recalled that he was startled by one of his colleagues crying out: `Look what Dr Marwan is doing!’

Next, the coroner invites one of the medics to give her evidence, and she then describes the body position - face down - the few words Marwan murmured before dying and the cause of death, which was a ruptured aorta. Reports are read in court and filed; one report is from his doctor stating that Marwan had been `under considerable stress of late’ and had lost ten kilos in two months; another report is of the post-mortem examination, indicating that antidepressants were found in Marwan’s blood. The coroner then examines Marwan’s circumstances, and it emerges that Marwan had just been accepted into the Reform Club, whose members include Prince Charles and the former MI5 boss Dame Stella Rimington. Marwan had plans, as reported in court; he and his wife Mona were due to take their five grandchildren on holiday. He had appointments. He had reasons to live. Mona sits there, so dignified, listening to all the details, not a muscle moving on her face. And what a confusing day: one minute, I insisted to myself that Marwan was killed, and the next, that he committed suicide. When it is my turn, I go up to the podium, take the oath, and tell the court about Marwan’s memoir and the meeting we were due to have on the day he died and, which never happened. When I walk back down from the podium to return to my seat, my eyes meet Mona’s, and we nod to each other.

The coroner’s verdict, when it comes in the late afternoon, is a sheer relief to the family: `An open case,’ the coroner announces. That means that it has not been proven how Marwan died and that there was no evidence to support either suicide or unlawful killing. `We simply don’t know the facts, despite careful investigation,’ the coroner tells the court, adding, `There are many unanswered questions …. Did he jump or did he fall? Here, the evidence does not provide a clear answer.’ One of the reasons for that is because claims about Marwan’s death involve, as the coroner put it, `the murky and secretive world of espionage.’

Marwan died as he lived, the mystery surrounding everything. His secret life and death remain opaque.

Mona Marwan, widow of Ashraf Marwan, outside the London court after the coroner announced an `open case’ concerning the death of Ashraf Marwan.

STILL TO COME: AN AFTERTHOUGHT