Nasser's doctor denied that Sadat poisoned him

There has been a rumor going around Egypt for the past couple of weeks that Anwar Sadat had given Gamal Nasser some poisoned coffee to kill him and take over his job in 1970.

One of Nasser's doctors felt compelled to go on TV to deny it:

The doctor of late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser denied recent reports that he died of poisoned coffee prepared for him by his successor President Anwar Sadat and attributed his death to hereditary reasons.

Dr. al-Sawy Habib, one of the members of the medical team of Abdel-Nasser, refuted insinuations made on T.V. by veteran Egyptian journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal about the involvement of Anwar Sadat in Nasser’s death.

“What Heikal said about Sadat making a cup of coffee for Nasser three days before his death is true,” Habib told Al Arabiya’s Studio Cairo Friday. “But this is not the reason for his death.”

According to Habib, it is very unlikely to identify a type of poison that takes such a long time to become effective.

“Also nothing abnormal happened to Nasser after drinking the coffee.”

Habib, who treated Nasser from July 1967 till his death in September 1970, said that the late president suffered from a heart stroke a year before his death and that he was already suffering from arteriosclerosis, varicose lungs, and diabetic complications.

“Then he had a heart attack and this immediately stopped more than 40% of the cardiac muscle.”

Of course, most of the Arab world still believes that Yasir Arafat was assassinated by Israel, and no one is likely to go on TV and say otherwise.