Muruta Azrael

Muruta Azrael (ムルタ・アズラエル, Muruta Azuraeru?) is a fictional character and a villain from the anime Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. He is the leader of the Blue Cosmos terrorist group, which feels that all nations of Earth, neutral or not, should fight against humanity's "enemies," the Coordinators, for the sake of a "blue and pure world" - that is, a world without Coordinators. His relative Bruno Azrael is a member of Logos. He is voiced by Nobuyuki Hiyama in the original Japanese version and Andrew Francis in the English dub.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. After receiving information from Rau Le Creuset on the true target of Operation Spitbreak, he and his subordinates arrange to place a Cyclops system beneath the JOSH-A Alaska base. They also arrange to leave Eurasian Federation troops for base "defense," while the Atlantic Federation personnel are transferred to Panama. The personnel are left for "defense" to convince ZAFT forces to move close to the base so they will be destroyed by the Cyclops system, crippling ZAFT's fighting strength. This destruction of Eurasian Federation troops also allows Blue Cosmos (which Azrael controls) and the Atlantic Federation to dominate the Earth Alliance.

Azrael uses his connections within the Atlantic Federation to "request" the Orb Union for use of their mass driver, since it's the only remaining one not under ZAFT's control. He leads the attack on the Orb Union when Uzumi Nara Athha, as he had hoped, refuses their "offer." In the attack, he uses the new GAT-X131 Calamity, GAT-X252 Forbidden and GAT-X370 Raider, as well as massive numbers of the mass-produced GAT-01 Strike Dagger. Despite the interference of the ZGMF-X10A Freedom and ZGMF-X09A Justice units, Azrael's forces overwhelm the defenses. Uzumi Nara Athha destroys the mass driver to prevent the Earth Alliance from using it, giving Azrael nothing but a Pyrrhic victory.

He takes an interest in the Freedom and Justice units, suspecting that they run on nuclear energy when he notices that the power they displayed is greater than other mobile suits.

After the Earth Alliance recaptures the mass driver at Victoria, Azrael decides to go into space on board the Dominion with the three Biological CPU pilots. They attack the Archangel, but are driven back by the Freedom and Justice units and the appearance of the Kusanagi and Eternal.

Azrael takes interest in a life pod Le Creuset sent to the Earth Alliance after its occupant, Flay Allster, mentions that she had the "key" which would end the war. After the Calamity retrieves the pod, Azrael obtains the N-Jammer Canceller technology. He convinces top Earth Alliance officials to use nuclear weapons with N-Jammer Cancellers to end the war by eradicating all of the Coordinaters instead of using the technology to solve the Earth's energy crisis.

As the war enters its final stages, Azrael becomes increasingly desperate to accomplish his goal of genocide, especially after witnessing the destructive power of GENESIS. When Natarle Badgiruel objects to his orders, he pulls a gun on her, fightening the other Dominion crew members into submission. However, Flay Allster alerts the Archangel of the impending danger as the Dominion prepares to fire on it. When Azrael prepares to shoot Flay, Natarle intervenes, restraining him and ordering the rest of the crew to abandon ship. Azrael shoots Natarle during the struggle and then prepares to destroy the Archangel himself. When he fires the "Lohengrin," however, Strike pilot Mu La Flaga takes the full force of the blast and saves the Archangel; and seemingly dies. In response, the Archangel destroys the Dominion, killing Azarel and Captain Badgiruel in the process.

Trivia Gundam SEED Destiny episode 33 reveals that he has a relative named Bruno Azrael, who is a military industrialist belonging to the conglomerate LOGOS, an entity that functions in principal for Blue Cosmos. Azrael is the name of the angel of death in the Qur'an. Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Special Edition provides a basis for Azrael's loathing of Coordinators. As a child, he is beaten up by an arrogant Coordinator of similar age, and when he asks his mother why she didn't make him a Coordinator, she slapped him. Azrael makes cameo appearances in the SEED Destiny ONA C.E. 73 Stargazer, one of which was in Sven Cal Bayan's flashback of being in an anti-Coordinator training camp. Here, Azrael oversees Sven's and others' training, but apparently comes into conflict with Sven's training officer.