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CAIRO — Egypt’s former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, one of ousted president Hosni Mubarak’s closest associates and briefly his deputy, died in the United States while undergoing medical tests, one of his aides said. He was 76.

An urbane, shadowy figure, Suleiman was Mubarak’s go-between of choice with Israel and the United States. As one of the autocratic leader’s most trusted advisers, he takes some of the fallen government’s most closely guarded secrets to his grave.

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“He was fine. It came suddenly while he was having medical tests in Cleveland,” the aide, Hussein Kamal, told Reuters without saying what caused the death. Preparations were under way to bring his body back home for burial, Kamal said.

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Suleiman stepped briefly into the limelight last year when he was made Mubarak’s vice president to try to end the Arab Spring uprising against his three-decade rule.

The gamble failed when the Egyptians massed in the streets to demand Mubarak step down rejected the political concessions Suleiman offered to appease them.