The Pittsburgh Press (June 22, 1946)
Background of news –
Sanctuary for the Mufti?
By Bertram Benedict
Great Britain is faced with a ticklish problem in the escape of the Grand Mufti from France to Egypt. If it doesn’t demand that the King of Egypt turn over the Arab leader, it will be further accused of being delighted at his escape and of supporting the Arabs against the Jews in Palestine.
If Great Britain does demand the surrender of the Mufti, it will further incense the Arabs at a time when all Palestine – and Egypt, too, for that matter – is a tinder box ready to burst into flames at any spark.
The British government announces that it will take steps to keep the Mufti out of the Holy Land. But probably he can be almost as potent in Palestinian Arab activities while in Egypt (after all, Cairo is only 225 miles from Jerusalem) as though on Palestinian soil.
Egypt’s course is clear. Egypt is the leading Arab state, and the Grand Mufti is an Arab leader. He has asked for asylum, and international law and the custom of nations recognize, not only the right of any fugitive to ask for asylum, but also the full prerogative of any state either to grant or withhold it.
Ancient right of sanctuary
In ancient and medieval days, certain spots were considered automatically to give sanctuary to fugitives – temples, churches, the home of the ruler (the Mufti presented himself at the palace of King Farouk of Egypt), and the legation or the ships of a foreign power.
Today this earlier conception of sanctuary largely has died out among the so-called advanced nations of the world, but the stories from Cairo indicate that it still obtains among the Arab peoples.
As the older conception of sanctuary died out among the western powers, it was largely replaced by the practice of extradition. Most states now agree to extradite persons wanted for crime in other states, but the agreement is always voluntary, embodied in treaty.
The Egyptian constitution is understood expressly to guarantee the right of political asylum. In 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, Great Britain established a protectorate over Egypt, but in 1922 proclaimed the country independent, and long steps toward making the 122 proclamation a reality were taken in the recently consummated Anglo-Egyptian treaty.
Not a British subject
Great Britain is further put in a hole in the Mufti situation by the fact that as a rule extradition may be asked only by the state of which the fugitive is actually a national. Nobody in the Arab world, and very few persons outside of the Arab world, will argue that the Mufti is properly a British subject because Great Britain holds a mandate over Palestine from the now-defunct League of Nations.
A report from Berlin, whether or not British-inspired, says that documents uncovered in Germany indicate that the Mufti was prepared to give the Nazis control over Palestine and other Arab countries in case of a Nazi victory in the war. The report says further that the Mufti was on the point of being arraigned as a war criminal as a result of these documents.
As one of the United Nations, Egypt is pledged not to give asylum to war criminals, but probably would insist that, whatever the Mufti’s dealings with the Nazis, he is not to be classified as an actual war criminal.