Hussein Salem (11 November 1933 – 12 August 2019) (Arabic: حسين سالم) was an Egyptian businessman, co-owner of the East Mediterranean Gas Company (EMG), and ally and advisor to former president Hosni Mubarak.
He was also the chairman and CEO of HKS Group, a hospitality company that operates Maritim Jolie Ville Resort in Sharm El Sheikh.
[7][8] Records of the Egyptian Administrative Control Authority indicate, however, that he was born in the Helwan suburb of Cairo, although al-Ahram Weekly states the latter location was actually Salem's father's birthplace.
Some sources say this was a rumor Salem allegedly spread in order to help him secure future business deals with the Bedouin tribes of the southern Sinai Peninsula.
[9] Shortly after receiving his degree, one of Salem's relatives secured a job for him as a clerk in the Textile Support Fund, which then-president Gamal Abdel Nasser had established to alleviate high unemployment rates, particularly among the youth.
He enrolled Khaled into Saint George, a private British school in Heliopolis, an education that Salem had to frequently borrow money to pay for.
[10][11] During the early 1960s Salem landed a job as the branch director for the Arab Company for External Trade in Casablanca, Morocco which paid E£43 per month.
The CEO believes Salem was supervising arms deals to help nationalist struggles against European colonialism in North Africa, in line with Nasser's foreign policy at the time.
Amin Yousri claims Salem cultivated good relationships with other Egyptian embassy employees by helping them buy Mercedes vehicles at low interest rates offered by the Iraqi Central Bank.
Despite his relative success in Baghdad, Salem did not find his work there particularly fulfilling and requested Howeidi a number of times for transfer to Europe where he said he had "friends" who could help him start a private business.
His half-brother Abdel Hamid later managed to secure Salem a job at Nasr Import and Export Company that same year by petitioning a senior official in Sadat's administration.
He was set up there by former Egyptian economy minister Hassan Abbas Zaki, an economic adviser to the president of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed, at the time.
Sayed Ali al-Shorafa, Grand High Chamberlain (Director)of the UAE's President's Court, Stated Salem was not charged with a crime and was subsequently pardoned by Sheikh Zayed.
Contrarily, Amin Yousri claimed that Salem had directly informed him that he acquired $200 million in the UAE which he transferred to his Swiss bank accounts.
On 9 October 1982, an article was published by The Washington Post entailing violations the company committed regarding various arms deals following the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1979.
The arms deals involved using money from the Persian Gulf states to fund Mujahideen efforts against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and dictatorships in Latin America.
Kamal Hassan Ali, the Egyptian minister of foreign affairs at the time, vehemently denied the allegations against ETSCO, calling them "wicked".
[13] ABC News ran a televised documentary in early March 2011 about what it described as corruption that was built in the Camp David Accords and American military aid to Egypt.
However, Amin Yousri would later discover through a memo sent from the Egyptian embassy to the Foreign Ministry in Cairo that Salem actually paid the Pentagon a much larger figure than was publicly announced.
A former partner in ETSCO who was also a CIA agent, Edwin Wilson, told ABC that Salem was a "front man" for Mubarak, according to anonymous employees.
[17][18] Salem was accused by Egyptian authorities of corruption on charges he illegally gained public funds by obtaining a monopoly on the sale of gas to Israel,[2][4] and as a result, squandering $714 million in public funds (independent experts believe the amount squandered is much higher)[19] by selling Egyptian natural gas to Israel at below market prices.
In exchange, prosecutors allege that Salem gave Mubarak and his family five luxury villas worth about $4.5 million, including a 161,000-square-foot seaside estate in Sharm el-Sheikh.
[22] Then in June 2012, the Cairo Criminal Court found Salem, in absentia, and former Petroleum Minister Sameh Fahmi guilty and sentenced them each to 15 years in prison.