history · 17 February 1948 · 76 years ago
Eighty-year-old Imam Yahya, the ruler of Yemen, was assassinated. During the war Imam Yahya had been courted by Adolf Hitler and received presents from him, but had turned down a treaty with Germany and maintained a policy of neutrality. His son and successor, Imam Ahmed, moving quickly to despatch thirty of his father's conspirators by having them publicly beheaded by a large grinning slave in the square at Hajjah. Ahmed would begin his reign by publicly blaming Britain for his father's death; claiming that dissident groups like "The Free Yemini" movement were sponsored by the British administration in Aden.
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