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I introduce this section of my brief memoire knowing my grandchildren will either be shocked or awed at my behavior during my teen years. Thankfully, they did not have to grow up under colonial rule when Egypt's foreign and military policies were decided in London's Whitehall, and when, worse still, the prime minister of Egypt was handpicked by the British High Commissioner residing in Garden City!

But I grew up during these turbulent times and reacted accordingly.

As already mentioned in another section I grew up in Maadi, then a small garden community created early in the 20th century by the British for the British. Despite the many advantages Maadi offered it was not an ideal setting for nationalist-thirsty Egyptian teenagers. Wherever they went in Maadi they came face to face with reminders it was the Inglizi who called the shots. An Englishman, Mr. Tom Dale, ran the small town from his office at the Egyptian Delta Land Company which owned and developed Maadi. A Scotsman ran the wonderful Maadi Sporting Club (MSC), a clone of the mother of all English clubs, Hurlingham of Fulham, London. As a rule, no one could become a member at the MSC without first being vetted by its English-run board headed both officially and unofficially by Mr. John Crawford, nicknamed the Duke of Maadi. Definitely, Maadi's club was an-all British bastion even before World-War II when it was overrun by British officers on leave.

It almost felt like Egyptians could reside in Maadi only by the grace of God and the British. My own father, Baligh Sabry Bey, a UK university graduate, was a firm believer in all things British, which of-course led to many arguments between my brothers and I versus my father. My brothers and I boiled at the thought our father was regarded by Maadi's snotty British community as "just another Maadi WOG" short for a wily oriental gentleman. I suspect this conflict of views existed in many other Egyptian homes in Maadi.

Our immediate neighbor was a Mr. T. Stevens, head of the Mortgage Bank and a leading figure of Maadi's Anglo community. Another sometime neighbor was Hunter Pasha, chief police officer of Sinai. Later, the banker was replaced by Egyptian statesman (and future prime minister) Naguib al-Hilali Pasha, and Hunter Pasha was replaced by a high-ranking British civil servant. All seemingly kept a watchful eye on their fellow neighbors. Little did they suspect two of the Sabry boys (Hussein and Ali) were about to shape, at varying degrees of importance, Egypt's post-colonial destiny. And none thought the youngest of the Sabry tribe would become during World-War II a daredevil teenager sabotaging British war efforts in and around Maadi.

I had just turned 13 when Great Britain declared war on Germany. As a result, I was a firsthand witness to how Maadi suddenly became a military garrison surrounded by one of the biggest Allied military bases in Egypt. Some of these Allied troops were camped within walking distance from our home.

A campsite for South African troops was located just south of Road 84 towards what is today the Lycee Francais school, spilling over into Maadi Sakanat. The bulk of the troops including 76,000 New Zealanders, were camped in Digla which was within walking distance from the Club and the Sabry villa. And if that was not enough, the "Maadi Tentainers", the entertainment component for senior Allied officers, stood just east of the Club, where the house of Queen Dina stands today. Moreover, on Fouad Avenue (now El-Nahda Avenue), was a top-secret military interrogation center housed in a large villa at the corner of Road 15.

As far as Maadi's rebellious Egyptian youth was concerned, the peaceful garden suburb did not lack "enemy" targets.

Certainly, there were enterprising Egyptians who regarded the war as a new source of income. In Maadi all kinds of opportunists and racketeers appeared; mafia-type groups providing various services to the Allied troops, from gunrunners and contraband --- trading services for weapons and precious oil resold in the black market, to providers of hashish for shell-shocked and homesick soldiers. Camp-followers also included makeshift tailors, itinerant laundromats and mini canteens.

As a teenager I heard all kinds of rumors some more foolish than others: Maadi was infiltrated by double agents mainly German spies and Italian Fascists. Nearby Torah town was a top-secret prison camp. Maadi's Jews were forming a militia in case Rommel's Afrika Korps defeated the Eighth Army etc. etc. To add some reality to fiction, Maadi's French community imploded into two opposing groups. One supported the German-leaning Vichy government and the other cheered the Free French under the leadership of General Charles de Gaulle. Amidst this ongoing chaos, Maadi's Egyptian youth were looking to make their mark.

The most important Maadi rebel group was headed by Hussein Tewfik, who happened to be a family relation through his mother Kawsar Bayazid. He was three or four years my senior. Together with his younger brother Saiid, Hussein started recruiting like-minded teenagers.

The budding group was not only rebelling against British presence in Egypt, but unconsciously it was also rebelling against our parents' perceived acceptance of the status quo. So, while Hussein's father, a pro-British undersecretary of transport, organized rail transport for Allied troops across Egypt, which he apparently did with gusto, his eldest son was enthusiastically scheming against local British interests in and around Maadi. His primary mission was to sabotage the nearby allied camps.

Several of Hussein's maternal cousins (Ibrahim Kamel, Naguib Fakhry and M. Hebeisha) and other young sympathizers spontaneously joined his gang. I was one of his youngest recruits. We met at Hussein's home (No. 55 Road 17) next to the Maadi Club. His trusting mother, who forever pampered her two sons, welcomed our presence. She probably felt lonely in this large house with a husband perpetually on call at the ministry of transport. Little did she realize her first-born was using the house as a depot for illegal arms and grenades. In fact, it was as though Hussein was "hiding in plain sight."

As a result of our underground activities, it wasn't long before I received "couched" warnings from sympathetic mokhbers (Egyptian secret police) advising me to stay away from Hussein who by now had become a prime suspect. But instead of staying away I became more daring and volunteered to conduct lone-wolf operations. A favorite pastime was high-jacking motorcycles belonging to British officers from in front of the Maadi Club. Another favorite pastime was sliding under the protective barbed wire surrounding the nearby South African Camp and sabotage one or two army vehicles. On one of my "commando" operations, I ran into a relative of our gardener who worked in one of the camps. He sold me an army-issue Berretta revolver which became my prize trophy until the day it was stolen from me while aboard a yacht in the red Sea some ten years after the war.

Unable to cope with mounting problems, the local Maadi constabulary which was then referred to as nokta or caracol, requested the help of the desert mounted police El-Hagganah which had a unit stationed nearby. They were experts at identifying car tracks. Maadi streets in those days were not all asphalted so their task was going to be easy. The object of this search was to identify the tracks of the Studebaker Commander belonging to Hussein Tewfik's father. In this commando operation Hussein and his younger brother Saiid "borrowed" the family car driving it to Menasha (today Mustafa Kamel) Square where Hussein shot a British soldier. An Egyptian investigating officer, Miralai Ahmed Abdelrahman Saiid, was called in from Cairo to head the subsequent inquiry. Soon enough, Hussein was taken into custody and interrogated by Major Fitzpatrick, the deputy of Sir Thomas Russel Pasha head of the Cairo police. But for lack of solid evidence, and due to the fact Hussein was recovering from an eye operation and therefore unable to drive a car, he was released. I was pulled in for questioning by Miralai Abdelrahman but was immediately released for lack of conclusive evidence. Although Abdelrahman knew it was Saiid Tewfik aged 13 who drove the car and that it was Hussein who shot the English soldier, he chose to remain silent. He nevertheless warned Hussein to watch out for next time he might not be as lucky.

In view of my "extracurricular" activities there were frequent midnight door-knocks at the Sabry villa. Time after time I was summoned for questioning at the tiny Maadi constabulary on Road 13 then run by Shoukry Bey, a sympathetic Coptic Chief-Constable. As midnight door-knocks became more frequent my mother would wake me up and, in a sarcastic tone, tell me "Your friends are back again, they are waiting for you downstairs," and she would promptly walk off to her bedroom. I was oblivious to the fact there could be a house search and with total confidence buried my beretta in between the roof tiles and, on one occasion, stored grenades in the family car!

Soon enough snippets in the state-controlled press began to appear: "Sabotage of British property in Maadi". "Drunken soldiers beat up on their way to camp". "Military depot up in flames". In fact, the British-leaning press such as Al-Mokattam, was now using the word "acts of terrorism" when describing the above mishaps.

The Egyptian Gazette, the mouthpiece of the British Residence (the name given to the British Embassy), summarized these goings on as follows:

As mentioned in the Gazette, the situation changed after the war.

Up until now, and since I was never caught red-handed, police questioning had been mostly benign, and, perhaps, because of my young age, I was never caged at the tiny Maadi police station. Hussein Tewfik had meanwhile earned himself a long sheet of charges, but his family connections successfully got him out of many a scrape.

It was after the war, that Hussein Tewfik changed tactics and now targeted Egyptian politicians he considered as British proxies. He had many candidates on his hitlist. The serial killing was foiled when he was arrested shortly after the January 5, 1946 assassination of former minister of finance Amin Osman Pasha. That evening, I was studying at a friend's house who learned the alarming news via his father who was a cabinet minister. Although we didn't yet know who was behind the shooting, I suspected Hussein Tewfik was involved. I was dead right. The following afternoon, on January 6, I was summarily arrested, handcuffed and taken to the Cairo Governorate where I was formally charged "as an accomplice to the premeditated murder of Amin Osman Pasha".

Sir Amin Osman Pasha

The previous day, assisted by two colleagues, Hussein Tewfik fatally shot the former finance minister as he entered the Reform League Club at No. 9 Adly Pasha Street in downtown Cairo. Almost immediately, the ringleader and 24 alleged members of his cell were arrested. These included an Egyptian army officer, junior civil servants, and undergraduate students. High on the most-wanted list was a future president of Egypt (Anwar Al-Sadat) and a future minister of foreign affairs (Mohammed Ibrahim Kamel a relation of mine).

Also arrested were Hussein's former associates from wartime days including a 24-year-old schoolmaster, a radio mechanic, a club clerk and two undergraduates one of them being myself. I had just turned 18 the previous October.

No less than 24 youths were charged on 13 counts ranging from premeditated murder to arson. One of the assassination targets was Wafd leader Mustafa Al-Nahas Pasha who barely escaped death on 6 December 1945 when a hand-grenade missed his car in Garden City but hurt two passing pedestrians and a British soldier who happened to be nearby. Hussein and his three accomplices managed to escape by aiming grenades at those pursuing him.

Whereas I had been active during the war years, I made it clear to Hussein Tewfik that I was not in favor of sabotaging Egyptian targets. As a result, my association with his gang ceased after the war. Which is why the December 1945 attempt on Nahas Pasha had come to me as a surprise. I knew Hussein was up to something but did not realize the extent of his disturbing endeavors.

For all intents and purposes the war was over. Most Allied troops had been evacuated. The Wafd government had revised and negotiated agreements with the British giving Egypt considerable autonomy and the gradual evacuation of all remaining British troops. The demeaning regime of Mixed Tribunals favoring foreigners had come to an end. Yet the anti-British sentiment was forever growing among the young; different secret organizations were formed every day, whether among civilians or within the army itself. The common denominator among all these dissenters. Get rid of the British!

Ironically, while Hussein was in prison for his fatal shooting of Amin Osman, his father, Tewfik Ahmed Bey, was elevated to the rank of pasha in February 1946 for "valiant services" to the Allied effort during the war. A decade earlier, another Hussein Tewfik relation, Maadi resident Mahmoud Shaker Pasha, was rewarded with a Knighthood from King George VI in 1937 "for his general disposition to keep the equipment of the Egyptian State Railway as British as possible".

Prison …

The day I was arrested, I was immediately coerced to either confess my complicity or to turn state evidence against Hussein Tewfik and the members of his group. The Prosecutor was desperately searching for weak links within the group's chain of command. Never mind if the youth arrested had nothing to do with recent political murder attempts. It was enough he had once upon a time been involved with the Hussein Tewfik gang.

Guilty by past association!

My first interrogation at the State Prosecutor's office took place at the Cairo Governorate in the huge office of Attorney-General Abdelrahman El-Tuwayer Pasha. Once the interrogation over I was led to the takhshiba (the prison section inside the Cairo Governorate). This was followed by frequent nighttime interrogation sessions where the State Prosecutor and members of his team desperately tried to get me to implicate Hussein and certain members of his group. Since I refused to comply, I was sent to the Foreigner's Prison and locked up in a 1-meter by 3-meter cell for almost thirty days. The only items I received during my solitary confinement were my study books sent to me by my parents. I was sinking into desperation.

My rare outings were limited to nocturnal trips to the Prosecutor's office. Chief-Prosecutor Mohammed Kamel El-Kawish Bey made it very clear from the start that turning state evidence against Hussein and his accomplices was my only ticket to freedom. It was during one of these nighttime interrogations that I came face to face with Hussein Tewfik. In this brief encounter, he told me he had confessed. This was when I decided to finally concede to El-Kawish's demands. As a result, I was released with the understanding I would be called in as a 'witness for the prosecution' at the impending trial.

Disoriented and despondent about having to turn state evidence against some of my former comrades, my father introduced me to a lawyer who was going help me get out of this dilemma. It later appeared some of the finest legal minds in the nation had agreed among themselves to reverse all confessions given by the defendants, for indeed it appeared Hussein Tewfik and some of his collaborators had confessed to the politically motivated assassinations.

The scenarios suggested by the legal minds were based on how those confessions were extracted from the defendants whether under duress using illegal tactics such as starvation or sleep deprivation; or the direct result of deceit and false promises; or under the effect of drugs placed in tea offered to defendants, or hashish inserted in cigarettes presented to the defendants during interrogation. The list was varied and long.

When my turn came up to stand witness at the pre-trial, I was brought into the Magistrate's Chamber which was full of other defendants and their legal counsel. After a brief questioning by the Presiding Magistrate, I was dismissed. But just as I was about to make my way out, several lawyers for the defense asked permission to question me. The Magistrate reluctantly agreed instructing them to be brief. Immediately I was questioned about the circumstances surrounding my interrogations and how it led to my signing a confession. I explained that how I was usually interrogated during nighttime and how I was offered tea in cups that smelled of alcohol that I that I could also smell Hashish and that in a state of utter exhaustion, I didn't know what was going on and simply agreed to whatever my interrogators wanted to hear.

The Presiding Magistrate, who was clearly expecting me to corroborate fell over backwards from his dais-raised table as I recanted my original statement. In a state of uncontrolled hysteria, he cursed me and declared he would penalize me. Unfortunately for him, the chamber was full of defense attorneys who seized upon the occasion to shout him down accusing the Chief Prosecutor's office of malpractice and abuse of power calling for a mistrial! The following day my name featured in some headline "Omar Sabry's pre-trial testimony disrupts ongoing investigation."

After endless deliberations I was absolved of any wrongdoing and allowed to return home. Thereafter, I was no longer the target of "friendly midnight visits".

Much to my parents' relief my daredevil days were over. It was however my uncle, former education minister Ali Chamsi Pasha, who took delight to parade me amongst his influential pasha cronies at the prestigious Mohammed Ali Club, prodding me to relate my "brush with the law during the infamous Political Trials".

The trial of Hussein Tewfik and some of his associates carried on for another year. When it was evident Hussein would be indicted and receive a 10-year prison sentence, his lawyer presented a plea of insanity backed by medical reports attesting to Hussein's history of mental disorder since his early youth. As a result, Hussein was sent to a sanatorium for evaluation. When he escaped from the Almaza sanatorium on June 9, 1948. A reward of LE 5,000 for any information that could lead to his re-arrest was offered by the state. But it was too late, Hussein had left the country.

Hussein was arrested in Amman, Jordan in October of that year only to escape again, this time to Syria where he was in due course sentenced to death for attempting to assassinate the Syrian president, Colonel Adib El-Shashikly. But once again Hussein evaded his captors turning up in Egypt courtesy of his former cellmate Anwar Al-Sadat who was now Vice President.

Hussein died at the Maadi Military hospital at around 58 years of age.