Hafez, Amin al- (ämēn' äl-hä'fāz) [key], 1911–, Syrian army officer and politician. He served (1963–65) as chief of state in Syria's Ba'athist government but had to flee to Lebanon (1965) after radical Ba'athist military officers, led by Nurreddin Attassi and Hafez al-Assad, toppled his government in a coup. Amin al-Hafez moved his exile to Iraq in 1968 and was sentenced to death in absentia in 1971.
