Mohamed Heikal: Journalist who became a confidant of Nasser but was imprisoned for his political views

In a 2007 audience with The Independent's Robert Fisk, Heikal provoked uproar in Egypt when he said that Mubarak lived in a 'world of fantasy'

Heikal: his weekly column, entitled ‘Frankly’, was always eagerly awaited (EPA)

Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, who has died at the age of 92, was a close confidant of Egypt's nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser from the 1950s onwards and later wrote of insider accounts of his country's wars and peacemaking with Israel. The popular author rose to prominence as a confidant and later a cabinet minister under Nasser, Egypt's socialist and Arab nationalist president who ruled from 1954 until his sudden death in 1970.

His close friendship with Nasser cast Heikal in the role of a leading authority on Egyptian and regional politics at a time when much of the Arab world was shaking off colonial European rule and embroiled in armed conflict with Israel. Nasser's leftist ideology, which centred around what he called "Arab-socialism", commands little influence in present-day Egyptian politics, but Heikal remained relevant long after Nasser died, respected for his wide network of international contacts and extraordinary analytical skills. The diplomat Mustafa el-Fiqi described Heikal as "the nation's authentic memory".

During his years as editor-in-chief of Cairo's Al-Ahram daily, Heikal tempered Egyptians' distrust of the country's tightly controlled state media under Nasser with his insider's take on the country and the region in his eagerly awaited Friday column entitled "Frankly". The column, closely followed across the Arab world, became known for what Heikal called "literary journalism" a writing style emulated to this day by some of his protégés.

The Egyptian President, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, said Heikal "established a distinctive journalistic school that combined political analysis with a magnificent writing style." Heikal's critics, however, accused him of being an apologist for Nasser's authoritarian style and restrictions on individual freedoms, as well as for Egypt's humiliating defeat in the 1967 war with Israel.

Nasser's successor, Anwar Sadat, sidelined Heikal shortly after he took office in 1970, removing him from Al-Ahram in 1974, though he offered him the post of presidential adviser, which Heikal declined.

In 1981 Sadat jailed him along with hundreds of government critics a month before the US-backed president was assassinated by Islamic militants. His successor, Hosni Mubarak, released Heikal and the others but kept the author at arm's length.

The Cairo-born Heikal, who published around 40 books, passed a damning judgment on Sadat's 11 years in power in his 1983 book Autumn of Fury, The Assassination of Sadat. His sharply critical views of Mubarak were evident in Mubarak and his Age, published in 2012, a year after Mubarak was deposed in the Egyptian Revolution. In a 2007 audience with The Independent's Robert Fisk, Heikal provoked uproar in Egypt when he said that Mubarak lived in a "world of fantasy".

Despite his poor health, Heikal frequently appeared on television in the past few years, sharing his views in lengthy interviews, first on Qatar's Al-Jazeera network and more recently on the privately owned Egyptian network, CBC.

Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, journalist: born Cairo 23 September 1923; married 1955 Hedayt Elwi Taymour (three children); died Cairo 17 February 2016.