By IANS,
Washington : Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s vice president under Hosni Mubarak, who announced the president’s resignation to the world, has died in a US hospital, CNN reported Thursday.
According to Egypt’s state-run Nile TV and MENA news agency, Suleiman died in an American hospital. But they did not provide details nor did they say where he was being treated at the time of his death.
Xinhua said Suleiman’s health deteriorated three weeks ago and he was transferred to Cleveland hospital in Ohio.
Suleiman was head of the intelligence services and served as vice president under Mubarak before his ouster.
In a sombre, one-minute TV announcement in February 2011, Suleiman announced that Mubarak had resigned as president and said the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces would run the affairs of the country.
The announcement followed an 18-day uprising in Egypt that saw thousands of people take to the streets to demand Mubarak’s ouster.
Suleiman recently made headlines when he entered the race for Egypt’s first democratically-elected president. He failed to gather enough signatures required to be on the ballot.
Born in Egypt’s southern town of Qena July 2, 1936, Suleiman entered Cairo’s military academy in 1954 and then went to the former Soviet Union to receive military training.
He was appointed Egypt’s military intelligence chief in 1989, and served as director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Services since 1993.