Shams Al Din Badran (Arabic: شمس الدين بدران; 19 April 1929 – 28 November 2020) was an Egyptian government official. He served as minister of war of Egypt during Gamal Abdel Nasser's era and the Six-Day War of 1967. He was removed from his post during the war and later imprisoned. After his release he married a British woman and lived in "self-imposed exile" in the United Kingdom.

Badran was born on 19 April 1929.^[1][2] After high school, he attended a military academy and graduated in 1948 as a junior officer^[1] and almost immediately dispatched to the 1947–1949 Palestine war, where he was besieged by Zionist militias along with Gamal Abdel Nasser in Al-Faluja, for which he earned a Gold Medal of Merit from Farouk of Egypt.^[2] Badran was later sent to France for a one-year training on a military scholarship.^[2]

Badran was the head of Egypt's military security services in the mid-1960s.^[3] He also served as the office manager of Field Marshal Abdul Hakim Amer under Gamal Abdel Nasser's presidency.^[4] Badran was one of the top aides of Amer.^[5] The Muslim Brotherhood accused him and Amer of responsibility for the torture of Brotherhood leaders who had been arrested due to their alleged plans to assassinate Nasser in 1965.^[6][7]

Badran was appointed minister of war on 10 September 1966, a few months before the Six-Day War in June 1967, replacing Abdel Wahab Al Bishri in the post.^[1][8] Amer had supported Badran's appointment.^[9] Badran was also named as the chief of Nasser's cabinet the same year.^[10] Badran met with the Fatah members in the late 1966.^[11] They asked to create a Fatah base in the Negev desert which would be backed by the Egypt's logistical help to attack the Israeli army.^[11] However, Badran did not take their plan seriously.^[11] On 25 May 1967, Badran visited Moscow and met senior Soviet officials, including Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin, to secure their support regarding a perceived Israeli threat.^[5] Badran resigned from office on 10 June 1967, during the Six-Day War, and was replaced by Abdel Wahab Al Bishri, interim minister of war.^[8][12] Amin Howeidi was named as the minister of war on 22 July 1967.^[8]

Following the defeat of the Egypt in the Six-Day War Badran was considered as a successor to the President Gamal Abdel Nasser.^[13]

Badran along with other senior officials, including Amer, was detained on 25 August 1967 on charges of plotting against Nasser.^[14][15] However, they were tried for their roles during the six day war in 1967, including for Badran charges of torturing members of the Muslim Brotherhood.^[16][17] Badran appeared in court in two separate trials.^[16] He and Salah Nasr, former chief of intelligence and also part of Amer's faction, were convicted and sentenced to hard labour due to their roles in the defeat.^[18]

Following his release from prison by president Anwar Sadat on 23 May 1974, Badran left Egypt and went to live in London.^[19] Badran published part of his memoirs in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa in 2014.^[17] Badran's reports included information about the personal life of Gamal Abdel Nasser which were disputed by Sami Sharaf, a Nasser era official.^[20]

Badran married his first wife, Muna Rushdie, on 7 June 1962. The couple had one daughter named Hiba; they divorced in January 1989 by a court decision, as he had been absent for three years. Rushdie worked at The American University in Cairo.^[19] In the 1970s he married a British woman with whom he had two children. Badran lived with his family in "self-imposed exile" in the United Kingdom, though one of his children moved to Saudi Arabia and another to the United States.^[17]

On 28 November 2020, Badran died in the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust; however, he had asked to be buried in Egypt.^[17]