MURDERS IN EGYPT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 89, 3 February 1947, Page 6

MURDERS IN EGYPT

ONE EVERY THREE HOURS

LIFE NOT PRECIOUS IN MIDDLE EAST

A murder or attempted murder takes place, on an average, once every three hours, day and night, week in and week out, in Egypt. Weapon-smuggling from the battlefields of the Western Desert aids the crime wave; and although 9000 firearms are sdized every year by the police, there is hardly a peasant who does not possess at least one rifle or pistol. The hiding of weapons is an art in which the fallaheen are highly adept and there have been cases where rival villages, after close but unsuccessful search for arms by the police, have resumed their gun battle and carried it on for hours. Crime statistics have been swelled by the increase in the number of professional killers, called by the police “shakis”—bad lads. The practice of hiding these killers is becoming more and more common although, like everything else in Egypt their prices have risen during the war. It is said that a murder which used to cost about fifteen shillings before the war now costs as much as £lO.

A fellow hires a killer usually not from fear but because the shaki is a much better shot, with a better weapon and greater experience. The shaki plans the assassination carefully, prepares unshakeable alibis for himself and his employer, frightens away or corrupts witnesses, and has the best legal advice available if any charge is made. A good picture of the typical shaki is given by Mohamed El Babiy Bey, former Director of the Royal Police Academy and now Royal Councellor who is one of Egypt’s leading experts on crime. “The killer is usually a Bedouin and therefore a good marksman and excellent horseman. He is usually a ‘suspect,’ but, not being under police supervision, like a released convict, is free to travel night or day whereever he pleases. “He is not necessarily of muscular physique or of imposing appearance, but is always agile and wiry. Often he wears a big moustache, which is considered as one of the relics of ancient chivalry.

Killers Are Often Rich

“Some of these killers are quite rich, with a long retinue of followers; some are known to levy toll on landowners, notables, even bus companies, which has to be duly and discreetly paid—or else!” According to Babiy Bey, the killer usually visits the victim’s village, studies his habits, examines the scene, draws up and sometimes even rehearses his plan and often arranges an alibi by reporting with perfect timing a mock-quarrel to a police post far away. One of their tricks to delay pursuit is to kill, on the boundary of two villages or districts, or better still, two provinces, because a dispute over jurisdiction almost invariably follows and valuable time is lost. Another trick is to entice the victim to a place where both are strangers and the inquiry is likely to be less keen. This practice of enticement accounts for the fact that there are- hardly any murders where known killers abound and many murders where there are few or no known killers.

Murder in Egypt is mainly rural and mainly committed for revenge. Eighty-nine per cent, of murder is rural and SO per cent, of rural murder is for revenge. Seventy per cent, of murder is premeditated and 67 per cent, of murder is committed by night, mostly in the open. Murder statistics in Egypt rise in hot weather, but this is not due to weather alone. The fellah’s habit of sleeping out-of-doors in the , heat offers an easy opportunity for murder, while quarrels over irrigation water are at their greatest during the summer months.

Jealous of Female Honour

The fellah, ordinarily a peaceful harmless peasant, will readily slay in defence of family honour or in a family feud. He is particularly jealous of the honour of the female members of his family and the slightest slip from virtue means death. The girl may fly to the busy cities, but sooner or later someone recognises her and tells the family. Her father or brother leaves the village and not long afterwards the corpse girl stabbed to death is picked up in the Nile. In one case a Bedouin girl who sullied the family honour by marrying a fellah, whom the Bedouins despise, was stabbed to death by her brother. The murder took place after a pretended reconciliation and her mother shrieked with joy that the stain on the family honour had been avenged.

In fact, according to Babiy Bey, the period after a reconciliation is the most dangerous, no matter how many hugs and kisses hava been exchanged between the two families. One man may be only waiting to kill the other at the most favourable opportunity and will afterwards ask how he could be the murderer when he was publicly reconciled. Although murders and attempted murders are so common in Egypt—there were about 2800 in the last recorded twelve months—the number of those hanged is very small. Russell -Pashe, head of the Cairo City Police until his retirement last year, said that in one five-year period there were 7000 reported murders, beside many more unreported, and fewer than sixty persons were executed. Another lawyer was more cynical in denying that the law’s delay and extreme caution affected the number of murders. “The victim’s relatives never accuse the actual murderer,” he said, “because they are going to shoot him anyway, but they accuse his father or uncle. If they can get the head of the family hanged for murder as well, it is a higher score for them.”