adminSupporters of Suleiman chanted “God is great” and “in the name of God”, as his casket was hoisted atop a horse-drawn cart after a ceremony at the Al Rashdan Mosque in Cairo’s Heliopolis district.
Some yelled out slogans against the Muslim Brotherhood, the party of newly elected president Mohamed Mursi and which Egypt’s intelligence services fought for years to contain.
Suleiman (76), was ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s last deputy and one of his most trusted advisers. He stepped briefly into the limelight when he was made vice president days before Mubarak was overthrown in a popular uprising last year.
Mursi, who spent about six months in prison during Suleiman’s tenure as intelligence chief, did not attend the funeral but sent a top aide, Brigadier General Abdul-Monem Foda, as his representative.
Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of Egypt’s ruling military council, attended the funeral along with other council members.
An urbane power broker who enforced Mubarak’s rule, Suleiman symbolised the autocratic, military-backed rule which dominated much of the Arab world for nearly 50 years and began facing popular revolts in late 2010 and 2011.
He was also a willing point man in the rendition of Egyptian fighters from Iraq and Afghanistan, in which the United States handed over prisoners to Egypt for interrogation. Rights groups said he was involved in the widespread torture of detainees.
Surrounded by dozens of military police and officers and several thousand spectators, a horse-drawn cart carried his casket as a military band played Chopin’s Marche Funebre. Suleiman was buried on Saturday.
Suleiman died on Thursday due to complications from amyloidosis, a disease that affects multiple organs including the heart and kidneys, three days after he had checked in for treament, said a statement by the Cleveland Clinic.
Meanwhile, An explosion yesterday rocked the Egyptian pipeline built to carry natural gas to Israel and Jordan, the 15th time it has been attacked since the start of the uprising in early 2011 that toppled President Mubarak.
The blast occurred in the early hours of yesterday morning at al-Tuwail, east of the coastal Sinai town of al-Arish, at a point before the pipeline splits into separate branches to Israel and Jordan, security officials and witnesses said.
Gunmen in a small truck drove up to the pipeline, dug a hole and placed explosive charges under the pipeline that they detonated from a distance, a security official and witnesses said.
A large boom echoed across the area and residents up to 30km away said later they could see flames of burning gas lighting the sky.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack on the pipeline, which crosses the increasingly volatile Sinai Peninsula. Security in Sinai was relaxed after the fall of Mubarak as the police presence thinned out across Egypt. — RT.
Londile Moyo
Bongani Ndlovu