People’s anger over these corruption and economic exhaustion boiled over and in January 1977 riots broke out across Egypt. In September 1981 the government arrested 1536 people, including Islamic groups, Copts, opposition forces and intellectuals. It led to the dramatic shooting of President Sadat during a military parade on 6 October 1981.

Corruption is rife in Egypt, where Koike received her "degree certificate".  Considering its ranking of 105th in the "Corruption Perceptions Index", it seems that things have not changed much since then.

The deep and long relationship between Koike family and Hatem family

Many Japanese people point out that Koike's father, Yujiro Koike was trying to start a business through Hatem's connections. It is also not hard to imagine that Hatem wanted to use Yujiro in developing his relations with Japan as Yujiro knew Yasuhiro Nakasone and (whether true or not) said he knew Shintaro Ishihara and other influential Japanese politicians.

A Japanese businessman who knew Yujiro Koike well says that in around 1999 or 2000 when Yoshihiko Tsuchiya, then governor of Saitama Prefecture, visited Cairo with his daughter Shinako (now a member of the House of Representatives) and about 10 other members of his staff including Saitama Prefecture officials, a dinner party was held for them at the Diplomatic Club in Cairo. There the Japanese businessman was told by Yujiro Koike that he and Hatem were old acquaintances. He also witnessed that Yujiro Koike having close conversation with Hatem. On other occasions the Japanese businessman met Hatem twice and heard Hatem speaking favorably of Yujiro Koike.

Hatem retired from the front lines of politics after Mubarak became President. He was trying to run his own business and asked various Japanese people besides Yujiro Koike to help him. The aforementioned Japanese businessman also received a phone call from Hatem at around 1998 or 1999 and was asked to help Hatem with the sale of electrical products or machineries in Japan.

In September 2018, I met and spoke with Hatem's son, Dr. Tarek Abdel-Kader Hatem, professor of business administration at the American University in Cairo and Chairman of the Egyptian-Japanese Friendship Association. According to him, the ties between the Koike family and the Hatem family have been strong for many years and even after Koike became a politician in 1992 Yujiro Koike occasionally visited Hatem in the posh Cairo neighborhood of Zamalek. During the Egyptian revolution in 2011 Yuriko Koike made a phone call to Hatem (who she calls her god-father) and adjusted her official trip schedule to Libya in the same year to stop in Cairo. Tarek himself met Yujiro Koike shortly before his death in 2013 and when Hatem died in 2015, Yuriko Koike encouraged him to continue the Egyptian-Japanese Friendship Association. Tarek visited Yuriko Koike’s home in Japan in 2017.

In short, Dr. Abdel-Kader Hatem and Yuriko Koike had a close relationship. When Koike was in Cairo as a student, Hatem already had immense power in the country. This is Egypt where fake degree certificates from state universities are rampant. If Hatem had been so inclined, he would have easily been able to push foreign students, who had no qualifications for admission, into undergraduate courses at top state universities and give them "fake degree certificates".

Ryo Kuroki is one of the best-selling authors in Japan. He graduated from Waseda University (BA in law, 1980) and the American University in Cairo (MA in the Middle East Studies, 1986). He has so far published 25 books which are mainly economic novels and non-fictions such as "The Bulge Bracket", "Energy", "Carbon Credit Merchant". His latest title is "Rise and Fall of Japanese Apparel" (February 2020). He lives in the UK since 1988.