Birth Name: | Mohammad Kamal Al Din Salah |
Birth Date: | 28 May 1910 |
Birth Place: | Cairo, Sultanate of Egypt |
Death Place: | Mogadishu |
Death Cause: | Assassination |
Spouse: | Amina Murad |
Kamal Al Din Salah (1910–1957) was an Egyptian jurist and diplomat. After serving as a diplomat in different countries he worked as a delegate of Egypt to the United Nations in Mogadishu, Somalia, where he was assassinated.
Salah was born in Cairo on 28 May 1910.[1] He received a bachelor's degree in law from Cairo University in 1932.[1] Upon graduation he worked as a lawyer.[1] In 1936 he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served as a diplomat in different countries, including Lebanon, Jordan, Japan, Syria, Sweden, Czechoslovakia and France.[1] In 1953 Salah was appointed by President Gamal Abdel Nasser to the United Nations Advisory Council in Somalia as a delegate.
His wife was Amina Murad, a sister of Hilmi Murad who was a politician. Kamal and Amina had a son, Mohammad Farid.[1] He was assassinated on 16 April 1957 in front of his residence in Mogadishu, Somalia.[2] He was serving as the chairman of the UN Advisory Council on Italian Somaliland during the incident.[3] Salah was posthumously awarded the Star of Somali Solidarity, and a street and a cultural center in Mogadishu were named after him.[1]
A Somali man was arrested and sent to prison for life due to his involvement in Salah's assassination.[1] The Italian colonists were also implicated in the murder.[4] An Egyptian newspaper, Akhbar Al Youm, claimed on 20 April 1957 that the murderers of Salah were from Ethiopia.[3]