XMAS AT SUVLA

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 January 1925, Page 8

XMAS AT SUVLA

TURKS TURN BRIGANDS.

LONDON, December 30Colonel Hughes, who was in charge of the'war graves in Gallipoli, is about to,enter a nursing home, in order to undergo a slight operation as the result of a fall from a motor cycle in Gallipoli. In .March next, he will take up the supervision of the permanent staffs of all the war graves in thA Near East, comprising Gallipoli, Egypt, Palestine, /Persia and Iraq. . Colonel Hughes to-day informed the special representative of “The Sun” that he had received a message from the officer in charge of the graves on Gallipoli, stating that three Turks, who were employed as gardeners at the Suvla Bay cemeteries, celebrated Christmas by brigandage. They raided a house in the village of Boghltli, near’ Suvla Bay, stole 800 piastres* and threw a. Turkish man and

his wife down a 30ft. well. The woman was killed, and the man is- dying from his injuries. The commission’s staff joined the native police and captured two of the men. The third escaped, but afterwards returned in the night-time, and tried to bribe a native gardener to conceal him in his house, subsequently menacing him at the point of a revolver.' The ’ brigand, however, fled to the hills.at the approach of pursuers, and iwas killed after an exchange of shots, during a chase for a mile. “The incident illustrates the excitements of grave-tending, and also the co-operation that exists betweeh the British and Turkish officials,” added Colonel Hughes.