MURDER CHARGE

Evening Star, Issue 22459, 2 October 1936, Page 7

MURDER CHARGE

WIFE ADMITS SHOOTING HER HUSBAND TREATED AS A SLAVE. An Englishwoman who admitted shooting her husband of 70 in their villa was acquitted of ftiurder at Nice, after pleading in defence that he was an Oriental and had treated her “ like a harem slave.” Mrs May Kemcld—who before her marriage to Joseph Kemeid. a wealthy Syrian whisky merchant, in London 32 years ago was Miss May Duggan, of Ipswich—has been in custody for the past nine months. Now she is;,free, and at the age of 50 is planning to leave the Riviera to start life again with a sister, Mrs Rose Morgan, of Hove, Sussex. Wearing a plain black dress and black gloves bordered with white, Mrs Kemeid, a pale-faced woman with tears in her eyes, said that she had been married to a man who treated her only' as a slave. " LIFE OF SADNESS.” “ I wanted to kill myjelf the day before the tragedy,” she sobbed. “My whole life has been one of sadness and loneliness. Even my daughter could not stand the brutalities inflicted on me, and left home to go into a convent in England. “ When we were married I thought all would go well. I did not count on racial differences. Being married to that man was nothing short of absolute slavery. It is hard for an English person to visualise the terrors. “ I still cannot believe that I am free.” Witnesses for the defence and friends of Mrs Kemeid told the court that she had suffered for many years from neurasthenia, and that she was not in control of her nerves when, on the morning of November, she fired two revolver shots at her husband while he slept, and then turned the gun on herself, inflicting a slight scalp wound. “ It was stated that a few days previously she had consulted a fortuneteller, who, after drawing the nine of spades from a pack of cards, told her she would “ soon be in trouble with the police.” Married at the age of 18 to Mr Kemeid, whq was 20 years her senior, Mrs Kemeid went to live with him at Cairo, ACQUITTAL SCENE. “He often struck me. Once I told him to go back to Egypt to his Arab girl. I was a harem slave, not a wife. My life was not my own. I left him after 10 years and came to London to work.” “ Why did you return to him?” asked the judge. “ I saw him again at Monte Carlo in 1929 arid went back. We had a daughter who was then 15, and who became a nun in 1931. From that time life became intolerable,” said Mrs Kemeid. For 10 minutes the woman in the dock waited while the jury were deliberating behind closed doors. As they pronounced their verdict of not guilty friends and relatives pressed round congratulating her. Mrs Kemeid did not seem to hear them. She walked out of court like a woman in a trance.