GRAND MUFTI IN SYRIA

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24900, 13 June 1946, Page 5

GRAND MUFTI IN SYRIA

FRESH REPORTS OF ARRIVAL (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, June 12. It is reliably reported that the Grand Mufti is staying at a village near Damascus at the residence of Jamil Mardam Bey, the Syrian Ambassador to Egypt and former Syrian Prime Minister. According to the Jerusalem correspondent of “The Times” the Mufti arrived at El Maza aerodrome, near Cairo, by a French aeroplane last Sunday, and left immediately by an Egyptian aeroplane for Damascus, arriving three hours later. Whitehall sources say that urgent inquiries are being made about the disappearance of the Grand Mufti from France. The Foreign Office is awaiting news following representations through the British Embassy to the French Foreign Office asking for an explanation. Rumours have been current throughout the Middle East of the arrival of the Grand Mufti at many widely separated places, but there has been no authoritative news. The Government of Palestine announced that it has received authoritative information of the Grand Mufti’s escape from France, but it had no knowledge of his present Although it is rumoured that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, beardless, carrying a forged passport and accompanied by a woman and two children, yesterday slipped through Cairo, inquiries reveal that the Grand Mufti’s wife and six daughters are still living quietly in a modest villa in a suburb of Jerusalem. The Grand Mufti’s only son is studying at a Moslem theological college in Cairo. The Egyptian Prime Minister (Sidky Pasha) said that nothing was known in Egypt of the movements of the Grand Mufti.