27 AUGUST

BRITISH GENERAL RELUCTANT TO INVESTIGATE THE CRIMES OF PRO-BRITISH LOYALIST MILITIA

27 August 1953 – General Erskine, commanding British forces in Kenya, reports to the War Office his strong belief that it would be best not to investigate the war crimes of the police or the King’s African Rifles, British led colonial troops, too thoroughly.

““I do not feel so strongly about Police or Home Guard offences because this reflects more on the Colony than on the Army. ….My predicament is that the application of the law to the obedience to an unlawful order will not be understood by the African Askari (militia and soldiers). I may have to condone this attitude because failure to so would, or might, have very serious repercussions on the K.A.R (King’s African Rifles).”(1)

MP AND MI6 OFFICERS MEET EGYPTIANS IN PLOT TO MURDER EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT NASSER.

[ 27 August 1956 ]

On this day in 1956, the conservative MP Julian Amery and two MI6 officers met dissident Egyptian officers to discuss killing Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, so he could be replaced by a more “friendly” government which would be led by Saleh ed-Din, Egypt’s former Foreign Minister.[2]

FOOTNOTES

1. Quoted in “Witness Statement of Huw Charles Bennett,” in Ndiku Mutua and Others V Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Claim no: HQ09X02666 p29 https://www.leighday.co.uk/LeighDay/media/LeighDay/documents/Mau%20Mau/Historian%20witness%20statements/Dr-Bennett-3rd-statement-FINAL.pdf?ext=.pdf
2. Scott Lucas (Editor)(1996), “Britain and Suez: The Lion’s Last Roar,” Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, p59.