MOROCCAN ATROCITIES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 168, 18 July 1910, Page 5

MOROCCAN ATROCITIES.

TORTURED 'WOMAN RELEASED. ON JOURNALIST'S PLEA, (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 8.10 a.m.) PARIS, July 17. Mulai Hafid, Sultan of Morocco, offered M. Weisgenber, Fez correspondent of the '"Temps," a parting gift of a horse with gold-embroidered harness. The correspondent solicited and obtained instead the release of Leila Battoul Ben Aissa, wife of Hadj Ben Aissa, Governor of Fez. The woman was tortured last month for refusing to disclose where her husband had hidden his wealth. The Sultan, for political reasons, declined to release Ben Aissa.

A shocking story of Mulai Hafid's ! atrocious cruelty is related by the , ''Matins correspondent at Fez. Furious at having failed to discover the spot at which Hadj Ben Aissa's treasure was concealed, he had the Pasha's wives subjected to the bastinado, and, not content with this, he had the favourite wife tortured. First the palms of her hands I were cut open, and sale was introduced I into the wounds. Then they were nailed to a wall, and, as she continued to deI clare that she did not know the place of eoncealrrient, her chest was crushed. The unhappy woman war; kept four days and nights in this position, being fed by force, and then she was released and (carefully tended, with a view to strengthI ening her to endure further torture, ouch." concluded the writer, "are the proceedings of the Sultan of Fez, whom I Europe continues to regard as a SoveI reign, and who last week repeated that I torture was abolished in Morocco."