43536
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mwimmiC.O. 885
15 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
GENTLEMEN,
No. 116.
(NORTHERN NIGERIA.)
FOREIGN OFFICE to LAW OFFICERS.
[Murder of Captain Keyes.]
Foreign Office, November 28, 1901. I HAVE the honour, by direction of the Marquess of Lansdowne, to inclose, for your consideration, the papers noted in the accompanying list relative to the murder, on the 21st June last, at Argungu, in the British Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, of Captain C. V. Keyes, Indian Staff Corps, serving in the 1st Battalion of the West Arcan Frontier Force.
The fullest particulars at present in the possession of His Majesty's Government with regard to this crime will be found in the second enclosure in the letter from the Colonial Office of the 11th September (Paper I). Stated shortly, it appears that, act- ing on instructions from the officer administering the Government of Northern Nigeria, Captain Keyes had proceeded to Argungu on the Birnir-Kebbi-Sokoto Road, in the British Protectorate, in order to arrest certain so-called traders from the adjoining French territory who had been raiding cattle in those parts. On arriving at their compound with an escort of seven soldiers, Captain Keyes demanded that their arms should be given up, which demand they refused to obey. Captain Keyes then pro- creded to take the arms away from the native followers, when it is alleged that one of the party, named Buret, raised a revolver and shot Captain Keyes in the groin. He is also stated to have been shot through or close to the heart. At any rate his death appears to have been instantaneous.
It will be observed from Colonel Morland's Report that Captain Keyes was un- armed and only carried a stick, though a boy appears to have stated that Keyes fired two shots at Buret with a revolver, without, however, hitting him. Whatever the truth may be, the raiders seem to have returned within French territory after the affair.
On the 9th July the Governor of Dahomey informed the officer administering the Government of Northern Nigeria that orders had been issued to arrest the culprits if they entered the French Protectorate, and on the 23rd August, in answer to a request for information which His Majesty's Ambassador at Paris had been instructed to make, M. Delcassé informed His Excellency that three individuals had been arrested at Fillinqué and put into prison.
On the 10th September last, the officer administering the Government of North- ern Nigeria, informed the Secretary of State for the Colonies, by telegraph, that the French authorities at Fillinqué had handed over to them three persons, of whom Buret was one, without any application having been made for their surrender and that they had been kept under arrest by the military authorities owing to the unsuitability of the civil prisons.
On the 15th October a further message was received from Jebba, the seat of the Government of Northern Nigeria, stating that the three men had been tried on a charge of murder, and convicted and sentenced to death by Acting Puisne Judge Pen- nington, and that the 4th November had been fixed as the date for their execution. This was followed by a further message on the 18th October, to the effect that the Governor of Porto Novo, in the name of the French Government, had demanded the surrender of these three convicts on the ground that they had not been handed over to the British authorities in Northern Nigeria in conformity with the Extradition Treaty of 1896 between the United Kingdom and France. A copy of the Treaty is enclosed.
On the 21st October the French Minister at this Court made a similar representa- tion at this Office (Paper M), and this was followed on the 26th ultimo by a more formal requisition (Paper Q) for the restoration of the prisoners, supported by a list of pre- cedents. This was supplemented on the 23rd instant by the communication of docu- ments to prove the identity and French nationality of the men.
I am next to invite your attention to the letter addressed on the 22nd October, by Lord Lansdowne's direction, to the Colonial Office, and to the instructions which have been sent, in accordance therewith, by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to the
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