Journalist, Mubarak-era MP Abdallah Kamal dies at age 49

High-profile journalist Abdallah Kamal passed away on Friday at the age of 49 due to a heart attack.

He underwent successful cardiac surgery a month ago, but his condition deteriorated suddenly on Thursday night. Kamal was transferred to a hospital where he passed away. 

Born in 1965, Kamal graduated from Cairo University’s Faculty of Mass Communications in 1978. He wrote for a number of Egyptian newspapers before being appointed editor-in-chief of the state-owned Rose al-Youssef in 2005, a daily paper close to the National Democratic Party's Policies Secretariat at that time.

The journalist was known for his opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood and often expressed his views in his columns and personal Twitter account.

His last tweets tackled the issue of the Islamic state of Iraq and al-Sham, in which he said that “American and European analysis of what’s happening in Iraq show that tens of years of deadly ‘nonsense’ taught these people nothing.”

Kamal’s political career flourished under former President Hosni Mubarak’s administration.  He joined the formerly ruling National Democratic Party, and was appointed member of the party's policies committee in 2003. In 2007, Mubarak appointed him as a member of the Shura Council.

His tenure as an MP and as Rose al-Youssef's chief editor came to an end in 2011 after the January 25 revolution. In early 2014, he launched dot.masr, a privately owned news website.