BOMB OUTRAGES IN CAIRO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18380, 21 April 1923, Page 9

BOMB OUTRAGES IN CAIRO.

FIFTEEN PEOPLE ON TRIAL.

SERIES OF PLOTS ALLEGED.

GANG TO MURDER ENGLISH. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received 5.30 p.m.) A. and N.Z. LONDON, April 20. The trial of 15 Egyptians on charges in connection with the bomb outrages on the evening of Sunday, March 4, is being continued. The prosecution detailed a plot, which commenced in the spring of 1919, when an Egyptian youth, aged 13, met Sheik Shafei El Ranna, who suggested that the youth should join a gang for murdering Englishmen. The youth agreed, and asked a friend named Nazir, who is one of the accused, also to join the gang. Later, the youths found that the sheik was co-operating with Fahmy, who was convicted in the vengeance case in 1920, and condemned to a long term of imprisonment. Meanwhile a man named Mohamed Amin joined the murder gang • on May 8. 1919, when a bomb was thrown at Darwish Pasha. A few hours later Mohamed Amin was found with wounds on his hands and arm, apparently from an explosion. By 1921 the organisation was known as the Black Hand or Black Revolver Society. Nazir, on February 17, boasted that an Englishman would bo killed the following day. Nazir was seen near tho Ministry of Education, and a few minutes later Mr. Aldred Brown was killed with a revolver. Nazir later boasted that he and a man named Tewfik shot Mr. Brown. The gang later planned the murder of Mr. Anderson, Oriental Secretary to the Residency, but the scheme failed.

On April 16, 1922, Nazir and Tewfik succeeded in shooting two British corporals at the Cairo railway station. Nazir also boasted that he had committed other murders.

Two daring bomb outrages were perpetrated on Sunday evening, March 4. The miscreants dashed through the city in a motor-car, and hurled bombs into a cafe which is much frequented by British soldiers, killing an Egyptian waiter and wounding three British soldiers who were having a meal. They then threw a bomb into the signal room of the British Army headquarters, which is nearby, and used to be the Edin Palace Hotel. If the second bomb had exploded it would have disorganised the whole British communication in Cairo district. The city was astounded at the daring nature of the outrages, which was the worst bombing attempt yet made. The bombers escaped, though the British headquarters were strongly guarded. Six members of the executive of the extreme Nationalists, who signed an inflammatory > manifesto, were arrested in connection with the outrages. __^^______——