PRICE OF MURDERS HAS RISEN

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5300, 13 January 1947, Page 2

PRICE OF MURDERS HAS RISEN

CAERO INFLATION LIFE NOT PREdOUS IN MIDDLE EAST A murder or attemptedi murder takes place, oit ait average, oiice every three hours, day and night, week in and week out, in .EgypJt. Weapon-smuggling from the bat- . tlefields of the Western Desert aids the crime wave; and although -9,000 firearms are seized eveiry year by the police, there is hardly a peasant who does not posses at least one rifle or pistol. The hiding of weapons is an ari in which thle fellah|een are hig'hly adept and there have been cases where rival villages, after close but unsuccessful search for arans 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 Tads." The practice of hiring these killers is hecoming mere and more coromon although, like everything- else in Egypt their prices have risen iduring the war. It is said that a murder Which used to cost about fifteen shillings \ before the war now costs as much as j £10. I A.fellah hires a kiiler usually not | from fear but because the shaki is j a irtuch better shot, with a better j weapon and greater experience. Thc j shaki plahs the assassination care- j fully, prepares unshakeable alibis for j himself and his employer, frightens awsLj or corrupts witnesses, and has j the best legal advice availahle if any j charge is made. A good^picture of the typical shaki j is given hy Mohamed E1 Bably Bey, | former Director of the Royal Police j 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: traarksman and j excellent horseman. He is usually i a 'suspect,' hut, not being under police j supervision like a released convict J is free to travel night oi' day where- j ever he pleases. "iHe is not necessarily of musculai i physique or of imposing appearance. j but is always agile and wiry. Of.cn he wears a big moustache, which is j consid'ered as one of the relics of j ancient chivalry. Killers Are Often Rich "Some of these killers ai'e quite i rich, with a long retinue of followers; j some are known to levy toll on landowners, notables, even bus companies, which has to be duly and discreetly paid — or else!" According to Bably Bey, the killei usually vi^Jts (the tvictim's villagey studies his habits, examines the scene, draws up and sometimes even rehearses his plan, and often arranges an alibi"hy reporting with perfect timing a mock-quarrel to s 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 enticemen! accounts for the fact that there are hardly any murders where known killers abound and many murders where there are few or ho known killers. ' Murder in Egypt is mairily rural and mainly committed for revenge Eighty-nine per cent. of murder is rural and 80 per cent. of rural murdeji is for revenge. Seventy per cent. of murder is premeditated and 67 pejr ' cent. of murder is. committed by night mostly in the open. Murder statistics in Egypt rise ir hot weather, hut this is not due tc 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, ord'inarily a peaceful harmless peasant, will readily slay in defence of family honour or ir a family feud. He is .particularly jealous of the honour of the. femalc members of his family and the slightest slip from virtue means death. The girl anay 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 of a 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 toofc place after a pretended reconciliation andi her mother shrieked with joy. that the stfain on the family honour had been avenged. 'In fact, dccording to Bably Bey, the period after a reconciliation is the most dangerous, no matter how many hugs and kisses have beep exchanged between the two £amilies. 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 pulblicly reconciled'. Although murders and attempted murders are so common in Egypt — there wero about 2,806 in the last reoorded tWelve months — the ntumjber of those hanged is very small. Russell Pasha, head of the Gairo City Police until his retirement last year, told me that in one five-year period there were 7,000 reported murders, beside many more unreported, and fewer than 60 persons were executed. v Another lawyer was moiA cynical in denying that the law's delay and extreme caution affected the number of murders. "The victims's relatives never accuse thc actual murderer," he said, "because they are going to

shoot him anyway, hut 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."