مجموعة ١٠/١٧(٣) "شؤون داخلية: الوضع السياسي؛ العلاقات مع الحكومة البريطانية" [و‎‎١‎٨‎٧] (٥١٣/٣٧٣)

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DEPARTHENTAL N O . 2 ,
Decypher* Sir B 0 Newton, (Bagdad).
12th December, 1940.
D. 10.20 p.nu 12th December, 1940^
R. 10.05 a.m, 13th December, 1940o
No. 764*
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IMPORTANT.
^ Your telegraiTi No. 631.
As a result of enquiries which I had set on foot before
the receipt of your telegram, I understand that on the advice
of the Minister for Foreign Affairs the Regent has been
withholding his assent to such a proposal*
Today I told the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the,
report which had reached you, and handed to him an aide memoire
asking to be informed as soon as possible when any such action
or decisions had in fact been taken or consideref.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs said that he knew both
Taha and Rashid Ali had for some time been considering
sympathetically petitions received from relations of the two
students who had been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for
the murder of His Majesty’s Consul, but that he had himself
always advised against recommending the Regent to grant a
pardon. Only a few days ago the Prime Minister had once more
spoken to him on the same subject, and he had again advised
that the sentences should be allowed to stand* He did not
know what further action the Prime Minister might have taken,
but he undertook that enquiries should be made,
I expressed my surprise at the Prime Minister's sympathy
with the idea of a pardon for these murderers, and told the
Minister for Foreign Affairs how, last spring, I had personally
shown Rashid Ali what my attitude tov/ards any such idea was
likely to be, by urging him to see that the police did not
relax their efforts to capture the fugitive who was believed
to have been His Majesty’s Consul’s principal assailant.
I added that any proposal made without consulting His Majesty’s
Government to release within 2 years the men who had been
condemned to 15 years imprisonment for the murder of a British
Consul, v/hose guilt had been legally established, and whose
youth alone had saved them from the gallows, would inevitably
be regarded by my Government as further evidence of the Prime
Minister’s entire inability to appreciate even the elementary
conditions of good relations with'His Majesty’s Government.
Repeated to Middle East Intelligence Centre No. 17.