SIRDAR OUTRAGE.

Hokitika Guardian, 29 August 1925, Page 4

SIRDAR OUTRAGE.

TRIAL OF ASSASSINS. AN AMAZING STORY. CAIRO, Jniie 7. To-iluy. after a trial lasting a full neck, the Court of Assize passed judgment in the Sirdar outrage case. There were nine accused, two students Who were recently caught under dramatic circumstances escaping to the Tripoli frontier; their guardian. a lawyer-deputy, who had already previously been involved in no less than two political murders, viz., the murder of the Coptic Prime Minister, Butros Pasha Khali, in 1910, and the attempt on the late Sultan TTussien in 191.3, who was Zaghlul Pasha’s nominee for the post of Director-General of Public Security, and was actually elected as his candidate while he was still under arrest in connection with the Sirdar’s outrage; two artisans in the railway workshops: a carpenter in the telephone administration; a draughtsman in the Government Municipal Department; an employee in the .Ministry of Wakfs. who had been a. cadet itt the Coastguards, had attained great proficiency in revolver shooting. and had been renowned for bin anti-British ideas, and has dissolute habits; and lastly a chauffeur. All were sentenced to death with the exception of the latter, who. having had no real hand in the conspiracy or the actual crime, was found guilty of complicity after the event in that he failed to give information when he found that he had been hired to drive some of the assassins away after the outrage. and was sentenced to two years’ penal servitude. A TERRIBLE SCENE. There was a terrible steno after the President of the Court had read the. sentence, which had already received the approval of the “Mufti.” ’1 ho two students as well as the, artisan who had done most of the shooting in all the outrages, commenced shouting and raving, while the others hurst into tears. The only calm ones were the deputy and the Wakfs employee, the former of whom tried to pacify his comrades, whom the police had great difficulty in extracting from the dock. The sentence cannot bo carried out until early next month, as the accused have the right to appeal on points of law, and the feast of Bairam intervenes. The hearing of the case proved most interesting. It was perfectly dear from the very outset that the deputy and the Wakfs’ employee had been the moving spirits and that the rest of the accused had merely been their tools, willing perhaps, but none the loss tools, 'flic two students were a debilitated. neurotic. weak-looking pair; the artisans and carpenter of a, low. uneducated, fanatical type; and the draughtsman, although superior in hearing, was weak and excitable. All were* obviously of the caste likely lo become putty in the hands of strongerminded men like the deputy and the Wakfs 1 employee. The crime was hatched in the office of the deputy who, with the Wakfs’ employee, prepared all the plans. The latter provided some of the arms and the bomb; he also made a study of Sir I.ee Stactk’s movements, chose the site for the crime, and allotted the stations to the firing party. The draughtsman provided the apparata for making the cartridges into dumdum : he also concealed some of the arm- am! hired the taxi in readiness for the c-' ape after the crime. One of the artisans did the filing of the cartridges; and all, with the exception of the- deputy and the Wakfs’ employee, participated in the outrage. It was proved that one of the student',, one of the artisans, and the Wakfs’ employe.' were crack revolver shots, and this fitted in with the curious fact of so many of the previous attempts resulting in i lie victim- being woundcel in vital spots. CONFESSION'S. Several of the accused made confessions. or partial admissions, iliat, not only dovetailed in with each other, hut corroborated in every detail the story supplied h\ the' young Egyptian, who, hin.'self condemned lor participation in the attempt on the life of the late Sultan Hussein, had reformed on leaving prison sis months ago and. entering the secret police, by his courage, resourcefulness, and energy was probably the prime factor in running this hand to earth. The account of how he got into ioneli with the various accused, obtained their complete confidence, worked noon their feelings bv all manner of stratagems arranged with the authorities, and, finally, persuaded them to allow him to escape with them to Tripoli, made a most aimmiug and dramatic story, quite otto of the most romantic- that Egyptian crime investigators leave yet met with. lie has now been granted the L.K. 10,000 offered as reward for the detection of the assassins. and ho certainly has earned if. lie says he will now nrucoed to Europe and complete the studies which his implication in the Sultan Hussein case inI errupted. A groat feature of the trial was the convincing evidence given hv the medico legal expert, Dr Sydney Smith, formerly Officer of Health at Wellington, X.Z. Tie testified that Sir T.ee Stack died from shock and hemorrhage caused by the perforation of the vital organs by a 0.02 bullet, which he produced. This had been transformed into a dum-dum by the filing of its nickel point, and Dr Sydney .Smith, producing a vyee, which lie screwed cm to the .lodge's table, with a file made, iii a lew seconds fiefure our eves a dum-dum bullet which corrcspondc*,’ ! exactly with those extracted from the) bodies ol the Sirdar and his companions. '1 bis vyce and file had been found in (he house of the draughtsman, and microscopic and chemical examination] had shown that they still had particles of copper, zinc, and nickel, such as would result from the filing of a bin- J lot. In his opinion it was quite possible.' that these instruments had actually been used for the cartridges fired in the outrage on the Sirdar. TELL-TALE BULLETS. 'the medico-legal expert proceeded to show that tho (olt revolver found on one ot the students was one of those which had been used in tiie crime. It had a fault which made a peculiar I groove on all bullets tired by it, and, J although they had tested eighteen other Colts, it was the only revolver which made on the bullets fired through it the same groove as was on these extracted from tlie Sirdar and other victims. Finally he produced a door from the draughtsman’s house. Tn this door was a hollow panel, which had been used for hiding some of the arms used in the various crimes. Dr Smith showed from the screw marks that the lid had been removed and replaced a considerable number of times, and, from ertain peculiar scratches on the inner voodwork. that two at least of the listol- found on the accused must lave been placed there on at least one icon sion. | The confessions, as .well as other ! j ■vidence that came out in the trial. | how that most of the accused particl- j ’ fated in a large number of the forty < dd outrages that preceded that on ' he Sirdar, while the discovery during I lie past few days of a collection of 1 omhs in the house of a relative of the , Takfs employee has enabled the authrities to establish His connection and ' hat of at least one of the artisans o

with the numerous bombing attempts that were made on Ministers five years ago. FURTHER ARRESTS. Tlie convictions are well-merited, and redound to the credit of the British and Egyptians officials engaged on the case, who in the teeth of criticisms and discouragement have adhered to their point, and have proved by the result that they have all through been on the right track. At the same time there is good reason to believe that even the ring-leaders were not altogether acting on their own initiative, and that others, higher placed, were closely connected with these crimes. An investigation is now proceeding in this connection, and the authorities have already made two somewhat sensational arrests, vi., the Minister for Education in Zaghlul Pasha’s Cabinet, who was conferring in his own office with the deputy now convicted when news of the outrage oil the Sirdar was received, who at once left, and drove in the opposite direction to that of the crime, and who is known to have accompanied some of the murder-gang into the desert for bombing practice, and. when one of those accidentally blew himself up, to have himself interred him. The second person arrested is the man who was Under-Secretary of State for the Interior, in Zaghlul Pasha’s Cabinet, who used his position in the preliminary inquiry to conceal evidence, and who lias always been known for his close relations with the agitator-cle-ment. He it was, in fact, who organised last November, on the occasion of Zaghlul Pasha’s pretended quarrel with the King, the demonstration which paraded outside the Palace shouting “ Sand or revolution.” and who telephoned orders, which, however, lie would not confirm in writing, to the English Commandant of Police not to do anything to interfere with the demonstrators. It is possible that one at least of the men at present condemned to death will have his sentence commuted, so that he may he able to give evidence in connection with this investigation, which is expected lo produce some startling revelations with regard to the part played by some of the highest-placed Egyptians in the ■series of political murders that have marked the past five years.