A wealthy Egyptian businessman identified as the Mossad agent who tipped Israel off on the eve of the 1973 Yom Kippur war about the coming attack was found dead outside his home in London in mysterious circumstances.
British police said Ashraf Marwan, 63, had fallen off the balcony of his home on Wednesday.
Marwan's link to the Mossad was publicly revealed four years ago by Israeli researchers and confirmed this month in a Tel Aviv judicial proceeding in which the head of Israeli military intelligence in 1973, Major General Eli Zeira, was found to have leaked Marwan's identity to journalists and others.
Marwan's access to wealth and power stemmed from his marriage to the favourite daughter of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.
His father-in-law made him a roving ambassador and Marwan began dabbling on his own in arms deals. In 1969, he entered the Israeli embassy in London and offered his services as an agent.
Despite deep initial scepticism about his motives and fears he was a double agent, the Mossad soon found him to be supplying priceless political and military information from the heart of the Egyptian establishment, some of which could be confirmed from other sources.