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© Karim Thabet
King Farouk with Emir Abdelkrim to his right
and Karim Thabet Pasha to his left
at the King's retreat in Inshas |
By quite a coincidence, in 1977 Eltaher’s son Hassan, who was working in Saudi Arabia, had learned that the French officer who was escorting Abdelkrim from the port of Djibouti where the SS Katoomba had stopped en route, until he was spirited out in Port Said, was also residing in the Saudi capital Riyadh and that his name was Lieutenant Colonel Michel Lesourd. Hassan met with Lessourd and learned from him that he was chosen to accompany Abdelkrim from Djibouti on to Aden, then Suez, then Port Said, where Abdelkrim defected. He was selected for this mission because he spoke Moroccan Arabic beside one of the Berber languages. Lesourd confirmed the story of Abdelkrim’s defection and shared his tale about the degree of confusion among French officials, who never suspected what had happened47.
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| Right to left: Mohamed Ali Eltaher; Marshal Aziz Pasha El-Masri; Emir Abdelkrim; Sheikh Sabri Abdin at a ceremony in honour of Abdelkrim in Cairo in 1947 |
Sayf El-Islam Yehya; Sayf El-Islam El-Badr, Crown Prince of Yemen; Mahammad El-Khattabi; Emir Abdelkrim; Ahmad Hilmi Pasha and Eltaher standing – “Dar Ashoura”, Cairo 1947 |
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