Did Abdel Nasser's right-hand man commit suicide, or was he killed?

Confrontation with Abdel Nasser

After the guns went silent, Abdel Nasser and Amer sat down for a one-on-one, according to the president's secretary, Sami Sharaf. Both were broken by the collective Arab defeat. "We lost the country," Abdel Nasser confessed, adding, "and both of us must leave (our posts)."

Amer nodded affirmatively, suggesting Defence Minister Shams Badran for president. He was then surprised that when formally stepping down in a televised speech on 9 June, Abdel Nasser made no mention, either of his resignation or the appointment of Badran, naming instead his deputy Zakariyya Muhiddine as president.

He would quickly retract his resignation after massive demonstrations broke out in Egypt and throughout the Arab world, pleading him to reconsider. In the end, Abdel Nasser remained in his post, and Amer was relieved of his duties and replaced with Mohammad Fawzi as army commander. He did not complain, moving to his native village for some rest before returning to Cairo on 1 July 1967.

The Last Supper

And this is when Egyptian officers began flocking to his home, raising speculation that he might be planning a coup. That at least is what Egyptian intelligence seemed to believe, and according to Abdel Nasser's bureau chief, the president was presented with a paper in Amer's handwriting—which he knew only too well—penned in red ink.

It specified when the coup would start and what exactly it would target. Even then, however, Abdel Nasser refused to take action, saying: "No need to rush. We need more concrete evidence."

Nevertheless, he relieved several of Amer's key supporters from their positions, including security chief Salah Nasr and Defence Minister Shams Badran, whom Amer had recommended for president.

The security services also suggested staging an ambush to arrest Abdul Hakim Amer. Still, Abdel Nasser said no, deciding instead to invite him for dinner at his home on Friday, 25 August 1967, implying that they would travel together to attend the Arab Summit in Khartoum, scheduled for 29 August.

Abdul Hakim Amer had no reason to doubt Abdel Nasser's invitation. He was a frequent visitor to the president's residency and accepted this call, thinking it was for reconciliation after much tension between him and the president.

As he drove to Abdel Nasser's home, military personnel were surrounding his residence, disarming the guards on duty and confiscating all weapons and documents within it, without harming or harassing members of his family.

When Amer reached Abdel Nasser's home, his driver and security were also arrested. Upon entering the guestroom, he found three of the president's deputies: Zakariyya Muhuddine, Hussein al-Shafii, and Anwar al-Sadat.

"What's this, a court?" he said in surprise.

It was a recorded meeting at Abdel Nasser's orders, who gently asked Amer to take a seat.

"You didn't tell me that they would all be present," he noted, pointing his finger to the three officials. Abdel Nasser calmly replied that Amer had no authority over him or say in who he could invite to his residence.

He then went into a long tirade about Amer's many mistakes, going back far as 1956. Visibly shaken by the accusations of neglect and misconduct, Amer snapped: "I am not a traitor. I put out my neck for you 100 times and will do it over and over if needed."

Abdel Nasser ordered him to stay at his home until further notice, to which Amer replied, very angrily: "You're putting me under house arrest? Cut your tongue!" 

Abdel Nasser was taken aback by the insult and, yet again, chose to forgive his old friend, although this was no way to address a president.

At this point, Anwar Sadat intervened, addressing Amer with a very provocative statement: "It's no use to deny, you are a conspirator." Amer shouted: "Me, a conspirator? You barbarian!"

The details of this meeting were recounted by two of its participants in a 2002 documentary about Abdul Hakim Amer produced by the Doha-based al-Jazeera TV. They claimed that Amer went to the second floor to drink some water and that they heard the sound of smashing glass.

According to their testimony, he drank poison and shouted: "Tell the president that Abdul Hakim has committed suicide."

They ran to save his life, and one came to Abdel Nasser for help.

"The president saw a very unpleasant sight," said his secretary Sami Sharaf; Amer was in "total collapse."

The stormy meeting ended with placing Amer under house arrest at his home in al-Giza after all of its sensitive documents had been either confiscated or torched. His security had been disarmed and replaced with men who owed him no allegiance, keeping tabs on all his visitors.

The mass circulation daily al-Ahram – a mouthpiece for Abdel Nasser – wrote about Amer's dismissal, saying that it was due to the "impromptu and ill-considered actions during the war, which led to withdrawal from Sinai and then to defeat."

Fifty officers, including two ministers, were arrested, all accused of planning a coup. Amer was confined to his home in al-Giza until mid-September 1967.

Testimony of Amer's family

Many years later, and following the toppling of President Husni Mubarak in 2011, Abdul Hakim Amer's family demanded the re-opening of his case, presenting court authorities with a very different story. They claimed that his successor at army command, Mohammad Fawzi, and chief-of-staff Abdul Munim Riad came to Amer's home with orders to arrest him, with Sa'ad Zaghloul Abdul Karim, the director of military police.

They invaded the residence on 13 September 1967, and when he resisted aggressively, they tried taking him by force. They would later claim that they had politely asked him to accompany them for an investigation, insisting that no violence took place, which was strongly refuted by Amer's children. His children would say that they beat him before his entire family.

Abdul Munim Riad said that at this point, Amer began to chew something poisonous, wanting to take his own life.

He was taken to a military hospital for treatment, although the medical doctor Hasan Abdulhay Ahmad Fathi would later say that he saw nothing abnormal about Amer, and Amer's children would insist that the story about him chewing poison was utterly fake, fabricated to justify taking him out of his home and to the hospital.

They added that an ambulance had been stationed at their doorstep when the officers came to take him, to add credibility to the poison story. But it was in the hospital where the poison came in, they said, and was carefully injected into a glass of guava juice that he was given to drink, which led to his death at 6:35 PM on 14 September 1967.

Nasser's trusted media adviser, Mohammad Hasan Heikal, was charged with issuing a statement about Amer's death.

It read: "Yesterday, an unfortunate and painful incident occurred, as Field Marshal Abdul Hakim Amer committed suicide by swallowing a large amount of narcotic and toxic substances. Despite urgent medical aid, he suffered a collapse, resulting in his death."

Almost a month later, the Egyptian judiciary came out with a similar statement, claiming that Amer had "knowingly and willingly" consumed poison "with the intention of committing suicide."

Amer's second wife, the actress Berlanti Abdul Hamid, came out in 2007 and said that her husband did indeed die from poisoning, but he did not consume it, and it was administered to him by his doctors.

She insists that there was another medical report, which vanished into thin air, prepared by forensic physician Abdul Ghani al-Bashari, specifying that Amer had been given poison with fruit juice.   

The LIFE magazine controversy

Three months after Amer's death, LIFE magazine published what it claimed was an exclusive 14-page translation of Amer's last testament.  "Though the Middle East makes a business of forgery, sources who knew Amer well and have read the document claim that based on its style, opinions and signature, it is unmistakably Amer's. It not only criticises Abdel Nasser but also indicates that Amer was murdered."

In the will, Amer is quoted saying: "Suicide is the farthest from my mind because that would be running away from responsibility and from facing it with courage and frankness."

He claimed that when confronted with the alleged coup by Abdel Nasser, he replied: "Gamal, if I had wanted to seize power, I would not have resigned in June. Two hours ago, an intelligence officer whom I would not have given a glance during the time of my glory came to visit me. He threatened to silence me forever if I ventured to talk." 

Former Egyptian intelligence chief Amin Houwaidi would later testify that Amer did indeed commit suicide, denying all claims of murder. Sadat's widow, Jihan, says that he was poisoned but not by Abdel Nasser, claiming that her husband's predecessor was pained greatly by Amer's passing. She blames the murder on those "surrounding Abdel Nasser," without specifying names.

As for Gamal, son of Abdul Hakim Amer, when confronted with the direct question on television: "Who killed your father?" he replied: "Ibrahim Batata, the medical doctor at the presidency. He is the one who killed him." The next question was "at the orders of whom," he replied: "I don't know…investigations will tell."

Sadat's testimony

In his memoirs, President Anwar Sadat recalls how Amer asked to be named prime minister in early 1967, in addition to his duties at military command. Abdel Nasser said yes, saying that he would find no better premier, but conditioned that his friend resign from his army post.

Amer refused, however, not wanting to compromise his wide-reaching military powers. He considered himself as Abdel Nasser's partner, never a subordinate or employee. Hand-in-hand and shoulder-to-shoulder, they had built the post-King Farouk system in Egypt, and Sadat claims that, at one point before the war, Abdel Nasser even toyed with the idea of relinquishing power completely to Amer.

He claims to have objected, telling Abdel Nasser: "It is unconceivable that you leave power completely to Amer. You know that he makes the worst choices when it comes to his deputies, and they are the ones who led to the failure of the union with Syria."

Sadat then says how he invited Amer over for dinner after their stormy encounter at Abdel Nasser's residence. This means that Sadat's presumed invitation was somewhere between 26 August – 13 September, which is highly unlikely, given that he had described him as a 'barbarian.'

Everybody in Egypt by then knew that Amer had fallen from grace, and nobody would the right mind would invite him for dinner or seek to court him, certainly not while he was under house arrest.

"I invited him to dinner at my home, where my family and I welcomed him well, as we always did in the past. I noticed that he had changed completely, having lost his self-confidence and love for life. He had become a shaken man," Sadat said.

When hearing that Amer had died, Sadat went to the Maadi Hospital to bid him farewell – or make sure that he was really gone, recalling: "I looked at Amer's face before I left, and I didn't see the whistle of death. On the contrary, it looked normal, like he was in a deep sleep, with no irritability or cramps."

"Tolerance had returned to his face, and I saw in front of me the dark-skinned, calm and gentle Abdul Hakim whom I had first met in Rafah (during the Palestine War) when he was in the prime of his life years and years ago."

Sadat ends his testimony by saying: "My opinion is that (his suicide) is the bravest and most successful decision taken by Abdel Hakim in his entire life. It solved several problems, and in the long run, it will become clear that this decision was in the country's best interest."

In other words, Sadat, too, pushed the suicide narrative, denying accusations of murder.

A final assessment of what happened on that fateful day was recounted by Yassin al-Farjani, a Syrian officer who had served as governor of Hama during the short-lived union. Farjani was among the officers who had travelled to Cairo to plead for union with Egypt in 1958 and remained close to Abdel Nasser until the very end, frequently visiting him in Cairo during the late 1960s.

In one of their meetings, they spoke of Amer's death. Abdel Nasser he said, was forever changed by Amer's demise.

"He was never the same person after 14 September 1967," adding: "In my opinion, the person who killed Abdul Hakim Amer was the same one who killed Gamal Abdel Nasser, just three years later."

Abdel Nasser's sudden death on 28 September 1970 would not have happened in such a manner, had Abdul Hakim Amer been still around."

He, of course, was implying that Abdel Nasser, too, had been killed by one of his many enemies, and not died a natural death, which is another theory long upheld by Nasserists across the Arab world.