Born to a family of Circassian and Turkish origin,[2] Umar Muhayshi was said to be a childhood friend of Muammar Gaddafi and later a member of the group of army officers called the Free Officers Movement that brought ousted the royal regime in Libya on 1 September 1969.

[6] He was later appointed Minister of Planning and took issue with Gaddafi's wasting of Libyan resources on pan-Arab and anti-colonialist causes.

In light of this development, Sadat's government considered several options: forming a Libyan government-in-exile headed by Muhayshi, using Saudi money to fund anti-Gaddafi dissidents inside Libya, or creating a Muhayshi-led government on Libyan territory (near the Libya-Egypt border), where Muhayshi could then appeal for an Egyptian "intervention" to remove Gaddafi by force either through arrest or assassination.

[12] Most notably, Gaddafi allegedly offered ex-CIA officers Edwin P. Wilson and Frank Terpil $1 million in 1976 to recruit a group of Cuban exiles involved in Bay of Pigs Invasion to assassinate Muhayshi.

[19][4] Muhayshi was murdered in January 1984 under torture by Sa'eed Rashid, according to Abdel Rahman Shalgham.