ARRESTS IN EGYPT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18879, 29 November 1924, Page 11

ARRESTS IN EGYPT

MUBDEB OF THE SIRDAR

ZAGHLULISTS IN GAOL.

rOHB PROMINENT MEN.

SINISTER PAST CAREERS.

A PRECAUTIONARY STEP.

By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright. (Received 7.5 p.m.)

A. and N.Z-Reuter-Sun. LONDON. Not. 28. . Despatches from Cairo state that four persons were arrested by British troops yesterday in connection with the murder of the late Sirdar of Egypt, Sir Lee Stack. All were arrested in their beds and secretly conveyed to gaol. They ▼ere :—

Nakrashi, formerly Zaghlul's UnderSecretary for the Interior. Abdul Rahman Fahmy, a member of the House of Deputies.

"William Makram Ebed, also a Zaghlolist.

Barakat Pasha, formerly Zaghlul's Minister for the Interior.

Nakrashi was dismissed from the Civil Service' after the Government officials' strike in 1919. Since then he had been promoted repeatedly by Zaghlul. It is alleged that he used his position to obstruct British officials' investigations of police murders.

Abdul Rahman Fahmy is described, as " the worst man in Egypt." He was sentenced to death in connection -with the "Vengeance Society's" conspiracy in 1930, but the sentence was commuted by a British Military Court to one of penal servitude for life. He was released under the Zaghlul regime. He waj elected a deputy after his release from prison by Zaghlul.

Makrara Ebed was exiled from Egypt vith Zaghlul and Nakrashi, in 1921, and recently accompanied the latter to England. He is a brilliant orator. He graduated in law at Oxford. Subsequently he ' conducted Zaghlulist propaganda in London.

In cousequence of the arrests three members of the new Cabinet have resigned. Furthermore, Ahmed Zulficar Pasha, Egyptian Minister at Rome, has declined to "accept the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. The Cairo correspondent of the Daily Chronicle says the arrests were precautionary. The prisoners will not be brought to trial, but will be interned. This was deemed to be the only practical way of averting more murders.

Directly after the Sirdar was shot and before the British Note -was delivered, the Director-General of the European section

of the Department of Public Security, and Russell Pasha, Commandant of the Cairo police, asked to be relieved of taking part in the search for the murderers, as they were convinced the Egyptian Government could best conduct the investigation.

The meaning of these white officials was that the organisers of the murder were prominent Zaghhilists and members of the Zaghlul Ministry. They said they knew "them and that they were in a position to obstruct the official search. It is not surprising, therefore, that Zaghlul's Minister for the Interior was arrested.