ALLEGED PERSECUTION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21020, 8 May 1930, Page 2

ALLEGED PERSECUTION.

DOCTOR’S STRANGE STORY. REQUEST TO USE POISON. Alleging'that he is being persecuted because he twice refused to obey the order of Has Tafari, Prince Regent of Abyssinia, to poison other members of the Royal Family, Dr Alexandre Garabedian has appealed to the League of Nations for protection. Dr Garabedian was formerly physician to the Court of Abyssinia. Had he carried out Ras Tafari’s alleged wishes, the last remnants of the Ethiopian dynasty, which claims descent from King-Solomon, would have been wiped out. ‘ Dr Garabedian, who is ’an Armenian and a graduate of the medical department of the University of Lausanne, -has accompanied - his formal appeal to the League with 300 pages of documentary evidence in support of his claims. The story revealed in these . documents is one of the strangest ever to come into the hands of the League, After serving on the staff of the Lausanne Hospital and being a medical missionary in the Soviet Armenian Republic of Erivan, Dr Garabedian was director of the French Hospital at "Heracles. In November, 1922,. he was called to Abyssinia and became personal physician to Ras Tafari and surgeon at 6 the Menelik ■Hospital. ’ • . • PRINCE REGENT’S REQUEST. All went well until October, 1925, when Dr Garabedian was invited to tea with Ras Talari, who, says the doctor, made a request that the court physician should poison three members of the Royal Family. . Dr Garabedian explains that poisoning is a common custom in the country, and that is generally regarded as being one of the principal duties of all physicians. The three proposed victims were:— ■ The Empress Zaouditou (now dead), who traced her lineage .directly back to King Solomon; Woisero Sihin, mother-in-law of Prince Ras Tafari; and Lidj Yassou, sister of the legitimate heir to the throne, named in King Menelik’s will as his successor. The heir was a cousin of Ras Tafari. At the time of the poison proposal he was kept in prison by Ras Tafari. According to Dr Garabedian, he not only indignantly refused to accede to the request of Ras Tafari, but immediately on his return home wrote a strong letter of protest. 'A copy of the letter is included with the documents submitted to the League; also a copy of a similar letter written after the second royal’ command to poison Has Tafari’a relatives. DOCTOR’S SURGERY RAIDED, Then followed the steady “courting” of fhe physician by Ras Tafari, who paid him every courtesy before renewing in 1927 h!s proposal that his relatives should be poisoned. On this second occasion the request concerned only the Empress Zaouditou and Woizero Sihin, the Prince’s mother-in-law. The doctor again refused, and sent a second letter of protest. He alleges that he was thereupon subjected to the most bitter persecution, which lasted more than a year before he .could leave the country. / The persecution included police raids on Dr Garebedian’s. home, his surgery, and his hospital. He was ordered to be expelled, but before the order was carried out he was exiled in the desert 500 miles from Addis Ababa, the capital. Finally he was kept in enforced seclusion, when his physical condition during exile became so serious as to threaten his life. ■ While in hospital Dr Garabedian was persistently refused permission to leave the country. As an Armenian, without a national government to back him, ho had no passport, which was made the pretext for refusing to allow him to leave. PASSPORT FROM THE LEAGUE. Appeals to the International Red Cross and other bodies secured for him a passport issued by the League under the scheme put forward by Dr Nansen for all war refugees. Dr Garabedian was permitted to go when he had this document, and since August, 1928, has been living at Geneva, and devoting himself to trying to obtain redress through the League of Nations. Dr Garabedian, in his appeal to the League, claims the payment of his salary as court physician to Ras Tafari, and adequate compensation for the seizure of his home, office, surgery and equipment, library, and personal effects. He places his entire claim at a sum equivalent to 359.0D4 talari (a talari is nominally 2s). The appeal has been submitted by Sir Eric Drummond, secretary-general of the League, to the members of the council and to Dr Nansen, the League’s High Commissioner, who is responsible for the interests of Armenians who have no other government to which they ean appeal.