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Malta exiles ((トルコ語:Malta sürgünleri)) (between March 1919October 1920) is the term used by Turkey for war criminals (including high-ranking soldiers, political figures and administrators) of the Ottoman Empire who were selected from Constantinople prisons and sent into exile to the Crown Colony of Malta after the armistice of Mudros, in a failed attempt of prosecution that occurred during the Occupation of Constantinople by the Allied forces. The Allied Government sent the war criminals to Malta in a prosecution attempt coordinated by the British forces. Ottoman war criminals were named and relocated from Constantinople's jails to the British colony of Malta on board of the SS ''Princess Ena Malta'' and the SS ''HMS Bembow'' starting in 1919, where they were believed to be held for some three years while searches were made in the archives of Constantinople, London, Paris and Washington to find a way to prosecute them. The competing Ankara government was strictly opposed to trials against war criminals. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk reasoned about the detainees in Malta on the occasion of the congress in Sivas 4 September 1919: "...should any of the detainees either already brought or yet to be brought to Constantinople be executed, even at the order of the vile Constantinople government, we would seriously consider executing all British prisoners in our custody." From February 1921 the military court in Constantinople begun releasing prisoners without trials.〔Taner Akçam: ''A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility'', Metropolitan Books, New York 2006 ISBN 978-0-8050-7932-6, p. 354〕 The European Court of Human Rights judge Giovanni Bonello claims that the detainees were released in 1921 after having no legal framework to prosecute war criminals, due to a legal vacuum in international law, therefore contrary to Turkish sources, no trials were ever held in Malta. The release of the Turkish detainees was accomplished in exchange for 22 British prisoners held by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.〔(Turkey’s EU Minister, Judge Giovanni Bonello And the Armenian Genocide - ‘Claim about Malta Trials is nonsense’ ). The Malta Independent. 19 April 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2013〕 ==Prosecution in Malta== Political developments in Turkey relating mainly with the rise of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk forced the British to a hurried change of plans. Rear-Admiral Richard Webb took the decision to transfer the prisoners somewhere beyond the reach of popular uprisings in Istanbul, as an attack by rioting crowds on Seriaskeriat and Bekir Aga prisons, where the political detainees were in custody, could not be ruled out. Webb assumed responsibility not to inform the Turkish government of his intentions till after they had been carried out, relying on some undocumented wish of Damat Ferid Pasha to send the detainees to Malta. Calthorpe informed Lord Plumer, Governor of Malta, of the need to use Malta for their safe custody outside Turkey. Some 40 of the more important suspects rested safely in the hands of the authorities, but five more ‘black lists’ had been drawn up by the Armenian and Greek Section of the British High Commission. 67 detainees were placed on board of the ''SS Princess Ena'' which sailed at night on May 28, 1919. Those destined to stay in Malta included 41 politicians, half of whom had been considered responsible for the Armenian atrocities and the other half “as a precautionary war measure”. Another 14 officers suspected of improper treatment of British prisoners-of-war joined them too. A new wave of arrests followed the storming of the Turkish Chamber of Deputies by the British troops, and 30 important political figures were deported to Malta on SS ''HMS Benbow'', where they arrived on 21 March 1920. More Turkish deportees trickled to Malta and by November 1920 there was a total of 144, held in a local prison. This prompted Mustafa Kemal to order the arrest of 20 British officers in Anatolia, which would later play a major role in deciding the faith of the Turkish detainees in Malta. Among them was Colonel Rawlinson, a relative of Lord Curzon and brother of Lord Rawlinson. British military courts could try three of the seven offences (breach of armistice terms, hindering its execution, and ill-treatment of British POWs), but only in the occupied territories, not in Malta. All the other offences, including Armenian massacres, were not enforceable following a legal vacuum of international judicial norms at the time that did not allow the British Government to prosecute them. The Attorney General clearly showed his reluctance to be drawn into any political wrangle and that, as far as he was concerned, only the eight prisoners accused of ill-treating allied POWs had any legal relevance, who were exchanged unconditionally afterwards with British prisoners of war held in the Ottoman prisons. For reasons never explained, the British authorities do not seem to have ever considered using in Malta any of the – mostly documentary – evidence on Armenian atrocities of which Turkish prisoners had been accused and convicted by Turkish military courts shortly after the armistice – substantial and disturbing documents. According to European Court of Human Rights judge Giovanni Bonello the suspension of prosecutions, the repatriation and release of Turkish detainees was amongst others a result of the lack of an appropriate legal framework with supranational jurisdiction, because following the World War I no international norms for regulating war crimes existed. In the end, no trials were ever held in Malta.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Malta exiles」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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