ROYAL ESTATES IN EGYPT

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27193, 10 November 1953, Page 11

ROYAL ESTATES IN EGYPT

Confiscation Order By New Regime

(Rec. 8 p.m.) CAIRO, November 8. The Egyptian Revolutionary Command tonight ordered the confiscation of all the property in Egypt of the former Royal Family. The decision, which will also apply to relatives of the family, will return the property to the nation, a spokesman of the Revolutionary Command Council announced.

About 100 members of the Mohammed Aly dynasty and those related to them by marriage inheritance, will, be affected. Their property is worth several million Egyptian pounds. It includes large estates, palaces, stocks and shares, jewellery, objects of art, paintings, and other valuables.

The property of the former Crown Prince Mohammed Aly, the septuagenarian cousin of the former King Farouk. King Farouk’s mother, the former Queen Nazli, who lives in America, Farouk’s sisters resident in Egypt, and scores of former princes and princesses and their relatives, will all lose their property. Recently the Revolutionary Command Council confiscated the property in Egypt of the former king. The council decided to set up a special committee to consider the case of each member of the former Royal Family individually and recommend pensions and allowances for subsistence. ’*

The council also decided to form a committee to value the property of the late General Ahmed Arabi—who led an abortive revolt against the Khedive Tewfik in 1882—and the property of his supporters, which was confiscated by the Royal Family, and to return it to their rightful heirs. General Arabi, who died in exile in Ceylon, is survived by five sons in Cairo, who have been conducting a legal battle for many years to recoyer their father’s estate and property.