Brotherhood's secret files (Part 3): Assassination of El-Nokrashy Pasha

We proceed with the remarks of Attorney General Counsellor Mahmoud Mansour, issued on July 11, 1949, beginning with his remarks on the confessions of the first defendant, where the warrant states:

First: The first defendant, Abdel Meguid Ahmed Hassan, confessed to the murder of Mahmoud Fahmy El-Nokrashy Pasha and that he was a member of a secret cell of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as that on the Saturday prior to the date of the killing of El-Nokrashy Pasha (that is, on December 18, 1948), the second defendant, Mohamed Malik Youssef, the head of his cell, came to him at his house at about half past seven in the morning and asked him to go to meet Ahmed Fouad at his house in Abbasiya, so he went and sat with the latter in a room in the courtyard of this house, where Ahmed Fouad handed him six pounds and commissioned him to buy three meters of black cloth to make a full jacket for a police officer. He also handed him two pounds to buy buttons, stars and shoes, and informed him that he had been chosen to kill El-Nokrashy Pasha, and then he assigned him to meet the third defendant, Atef Attiya Helmy, at the Astra store in Khedive Ismail Square and to search for a café near the Ministry of the Interior and verify its phone number. So he went to a café located at the intersection of Sultan Hussein and Emad El-Din streets, with telephone number 49066, and from there to the “carpenter’s shop” in Opera Square, so he bought three meters of black cloth from him at a price of 210 piasters per square meter. (It was found in the book of that shop that this cloth was sold according to its size and price on the date of December 18, 1948). Then he bought the buttons and stars and went to the Astra store in Khedive Ismail Square, where he met the third accused, Atef Attiya. Then they went together to a shop (it was found upon guidance that it was the shop of the fourth accused, Kamal Sayed Sayed Al-Kazzaz). Abdel Meguid waited outside and Atef entered the shop, and then he exited and continued his walk with Abdel Meguid until they reached a shop next to the shop of the tailor Abdul Aziz Ahmed Al-Baqli, the fifth defendant, who came to the adjacent shop, where he took his measurements, as he had a rehearsal for him in his shop in the evening of the same day and then met him the next day (Sunday, November 19, 1948) in front of the Isis Cinema around one o'clock in the afternoon. They went together to the tailor's house, where he held a second rehearsal for him. Abdel Meguid Ahmed Hassan also bought black shoes on this day, handing them over to the third defendant, Atef Attiya Helmy, and he met in the evening with Officer Ahmed Fouad, according to a previous agreement, in front of Dar Al-Hikma on Qasr El-Aini Street. Then they went together to Atef Attiya's house, and there, the sixth defendant, Sayyid Sabiq Mohamed El-Tohamy, met them and Atef Attiya presented him to him, then Sayyid Sabiq recited to him some verses and supplications as a justification for him to commit the crime and instructed him to recite a special supplication on his way to committing the incident.

On the morning of Monday, December 20, 1948, he went to a house in Shubra that they had appointed for him, where he found shoes and a jacket, so he put them on in the presence of Ahmed Fouad. Then he went to the café and Ahmed Fouad asked him by phone by the name Hosni as an experiment. On the following Sunday, December 26, 1948, he went again to that house in Shubra, where Ahmed Fouad handed him the pistol and drew the lobby of the Ministry of the Interior for him and determined the place for him to stand there. Then he put on the military jacket and went to the cafe as an experiment again - and on the day of the incident, he went a third time to that house carrying the pistol and changed into his military jacket and went to the café, where he received a telephone notification of the approaching arrival time of the victim. He immediately went to the Ministry of the Interior and entered the lobby on the ground floor, gaining access by the jacket, and he waited until the victim came and walked on his way to the elevator, where the defendant fired two bullets at him from the left and from behind, and he fell to the ground and then a third bullet was fired from the pistol.

Defendant gets acquainted with his accomplices:

This first defendant got acquainted with the defendants Mohamed Malik Youssef, Atef Attiya Helmy and Sayyid Sabiq Mohamed El-Tohamy when they were introduced to him among others. He guided to the homes of the defendants Mohamed Malik Youssef, Atef Attiya Helmy and Abdul Aziz Ahmed Al-Baqli, as well as the house of Ahmed Fouad Abdel Wahab, and described them all and their contents from the inside very accurately, which was verified by the investigation, as he indicated a dwelling on the first floor of house No. 25 Ali Younes Street in Shubra, the house in which he changed his clothes, which turned out to be owned by the tenth witness, Mohamed Ahmed Diab.

Second: It was found that Ahmed Fouad, who was mentioned by in the statements of the first defendant, was First Lieutenant Ahmed Fouad Abdel Wahhab, a police officer in Bandar Banha, and he had been attached to the Passports Department at Almaza Airport on the date of the incident and was then transferred to Bandar Banha and then arrested after the confession of the first defendant against him, but he managed to escape from the officer appointed to guard him, so a police force tracked him to the farms and exchanged fire with him, and he was hit by a bullet and died.

Third: When searching for the second defendant, Mohamed Malik Youssef, on the night of March 23, 1949, after the confession of the first defendant, it was found that he was working his shift at Almaza Airport until eight o’clock in the evening on March 22, 1949, but he disappeared after that. One of the royal policemen saw him around noon on March 23, 1949, while he was taking refuge in the house of two female relatives of his, but when he tried to apprehend him, the defendant hit him with a chair and ran away. He was then arrested in the city of Alexandria on May 14, 1949, and was interrogated about the accusation against him. He initially denied knowing the first defendant, Abdel Meguid Ahmed Hassan, but then he confessed that he actually knew him, as well as the officer Ahmed Fouad Abdel Wahhab, and that the latter assigned him before the killing of the late El-Nokrashy Pasha to pass by Abdel Meguid at his house and ask him to go to meet Ahmed Fouad at his house, although he claimed that he did not know the purpose of this meeting, as he mentioned that Ahmed Fouad had asked him before that to train Abdel Meguid to drive cars. Then he went back and confessed in another account that he knew both the first defendant, Abdel Meguid Ahmed Hassan, and the officer, Ahmed Fouad Abdel Wahhab, in the Muslim Youth Association Club, and that he knew the first as Hosni and the second as Farid. About ten days or two weeks before the killing of the late El-Nokrashy Pasha, he met the second of them at the Bosphorus Café and asked him to inform the first when he saw him at the Muslim Youth Association Club that he wanted to meet him, so he informed him of that. Then he learned about the murder and saw the picture of the killer in the newspapers, and about a week later Ahmed Fouad Abdel Wahhab invited him to meet him at the Bosphorus Café, and when he met him, the latter advised him to deny his connection with the killer. When his house was searched on the evening of March 22, 1949 and he learned that the police were serious about arresting him, Fouad Ahmed Al-Sadiq (whom Ahmed Fouad had introduced him to) handed him a pistol to defend himself during the attempt to arrest him, as he and other Muslim Brotherhood members had done while hiding in several houses in Cairo and Alexandria, and it was understood from them that they were forming a secret society and that they intended not to hand him over to the police alive.

Role of Mohamed Malik, the father of Hassan Malik, in the case:

Fourth: Mustafa Kamal Abdel Meguid (the defendant in felony case No. 41 of 1949 in Old Egypt of throwing bombs at the car of His Excellency the Speaker of the House of Representatives) confessed in the investigation of Military Felony case No. 227 in 1948 El-Weili that he met with the defendant Mohamed Malik Youssef in one of the houses in which he was hiding, and a conversation took place between them in which Mohamed Malik said that Abdel Meguid Ahmed Hassan had betrayed him and the brothers by disclosing the names of his accomplices in the crime. Mohamed Malik admitted that this conversation had happened and confessed that he meant by the betrayal that he attributed to Abdel Meguid that he had falsely accused him of participating in the murder.

Fifth: The third defendant, Atef Attiya Helmy, initially denied his connection to the first defendant, Abdel Meguid Ahmed Hassan, but changed this after he recognized the first defendant in the lineup and admitted that he knew him before, as he was one of the witnesses of an altercation that occurred between him and another while he was listening to a lecture at the general center of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1945, and that he met him by chance about two weeks before the incident in Khedive Ismail Square near the Astra store, then accompanied him to his home, where a long conversation took place between them, from which he understood that the Muslim Brotherhood intended to kill El-Nokrashy Pasha, although he did not agree to that.

Sixth: Dr. El-Sayed Bahgat El-Gayyar admitted in a special investigation to helping the second defendant, Mohamed Malik Youssef, to escape, and that this defendant had fled in a car from Cairo to Alexandria. He also confessed that the third defendant, Atef Attiya Helmy, had proposed to him in May 1947 the formation of a medical cell to treat the Muslim Brotherhood from any injuries they may suffer because of their training in the use of weapons, and that he last met him about two months prior and advised him to take a pseudonym for himself because the Brotherhood’s dawah may be opposed by force, so it was necessary to respond to this force with the same. After that, Dr. El-Gayyar claimed that he did not remember whether it was Atef Attiya or someone else who spoke to him about these matters.

Seventh: The fifth defendant, Abdul Aziz Ahmed Al-Baqli, connfessed that the fourth defendant, Kamal Sayed Sayed Al-Kazzaz, came to him at his shop and told him that two people would come to him and to make one of them a military jacket. Two days later, the first defendant, Abdel Meguid Ahmed Hassan, came to him in a car with two people, and the first defendant entered the shop with one of them. Baqli took his measurements, and then held a rehearsal for him at his shop the next day. When he finished making the jacket, he handed it to a colleague of that defendant. He recognized the third accused, Atef Attiya Helmy, when he was presented to him among others in a lineup, and he admitted that he suspected that he was the colleague of the first defendant who had come with him to his shop.

The fifth defendant discussed what his worker, Mustafa Abdel Moneim El-Menoufy, the ninth witness, had admitted that he took the jacket out of the shop and came back with it after the rehearsal, so he admitted that he actually took the jacket that afternoon and came back with it about half an hour later, and he claimed that he had taken it to for mending, but he changed that and took it back to the store.