Mohammed Beck Hadjetlaché (20 May 1868,

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

- 4 November 1929,

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

) was a Circassian journalist, writer,

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

(

SIS Sis or SIS may refer to: People *Michael Sis (born 1960), American Catholic bishop Places * Sis (ancient city), historical town in modern-day Turkey, served as the capital of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. * Kozan, Adana, the current name ...

) agent, and anti-communist

white movement The White movement,. The old spelling was retained by the Whites to differentiate from the Reds. also known as the Whites, was one of the main factions of the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. It was led mainly by the Right-wing politics, right- ...

terrorist. Hadjetlaché used many assumed identities, but his real name was likely Kasi Beck Akhmetukov. Hadjetlaché is mostly remembered for the series of three murders he committed in the Stockholm area. The victims were accused of being Bolshevik agents. Hadjetlaché was sentenced to death for these murders in 1920. This was the last death sentence passed on any person in Sweden. After his death sentence was commuted to life in prison, Hadjetlaché died in prison in 1929.

Biography

Kasi Beck Akhmetukov was born in Istanbul in a Circassian family, which fled from

Circassia Circassia ( ), also known as Zichia, was a country and a historical region in . It spanned the western coastal portions of the North Caucasus, along the northeastern shore of the Black Sea. Circassia was conquered by the Russian Empire during ...

after the

Russian-Circassian War The Russo-Circassian War, also known as the Russian invasion of Circassia, was the 101-year-long invasion of Circassia by the Russian Empire. The conflict started in 1763 ( O.S.) with Russia assuming authority in Circassia, followed by Circa ...

. In 1878 his father, a

Bashi-bazouk A bashi-bazouk ( , , , roughly "leaderless" or "disorderly") was an irregular soldier of the Ottoman army, raised in times of war. The army primarily enlisted Albanians and sometimes Circassians as bashi-bazouks, but recruits came from all et ...

leader, was killed in the

Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) The Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) was a conflict between the Ottoman Empire and a coalition led by the Russian Empire which included United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, Romania, Principality of Serbia, Serbia, and Principality of ...

. In 1882 he emigrated to Russia, and was adopted by the childless Ettinger family and called Grigory. In 1890s he wrote and published several novels and short stories under the

pen name A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...

Hadjetlaché. In 1916 Hadjetlaché offered to run an "anti-German and anti-Turkish propaganda campaign among the Moslems on a worldwide scale" for the Russian government and asked for money. In 1917 he was recruited by what was then MI1c while working at a British propaganda unit called the Anglo-Russian Commission in St Petersburg. He was being run as an agent by Captain John Dymoke Scale. He left Soviet Russia and went to Sweden in 1918, where he organized a White Terrorist cell called the "Russian League", which planned to help in the counter revolutionary struggle against the Bolsheviks with

as its base. Hadjetlaché purchased a house in the woods outside of Stockholm. He and his gang brought people, whom they accused of being Bolshevik agents, to the house, where they were killed and had their bodies were then dropped in a nearby lake. When the police discovered the gang in 1919, three bodies were found in the Norrviken lake. The confirmed victims were engineer Karl Calvé (originally possibly Gleb Varfolomeyev), journalist and Soviet diplomatic courier Juri Levi (Paul) Levitsky and nobleman Nicolai Ardachev, a doctor in law. According to Hadjetlaché's own "death list" it is likely that more people had been killed. The murders were exploited for propaganda purposes by the Soviet press. Soviet writer Alexei Tolstoi included it in his novel "Emigrants". Hadjetlaché was sentenced to death on 28 May 1920 by guillotine, later converted to life in accordance with the ''de facto'' moratorium persisting before abolition the next year. He died in 1929 in

Långholmen Prison Långholmen is an island between two other islands, Södermalm and Kungsholmen, in central Stockholm, Sweden. This island can be reached via two bridges; Pålsundsbron in the east and Långholmsbron in the west. Långholmen is a popular sp ...

, shortly after a failed application for commutation to time served. He was the last person to be sentenced to death in Sweden, although the capital punishment remained in military law until 1972. Hadjetlaché's accomplices received prison terms ranging from six months to 8 years.

Carl Sandburg Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg w ...

wrote a poem about Hadjetlaché under the title "Mohammed Bek Hadjetlaché." It is written as if Sandburg had personally met Mohammed Beck Hadjetlaché.

Sources

* Lundberg, Svante. ''Ryssligan'' (2004).
Fonds Mahomet-Beck Hadjetlache

* ttps://runeberg.org/nfcp/0114.html Nordisk Familjebok pages 191-192*(Государственный архив Российской Федерации (ГАРФ), Ф.102, ДП ОО; C. Kumuk, Düvel-i Muazzama’nın Kıskacında Kafkasya Dağlıları,Istanbul, 2022, p.168)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hadjetlache, Mohammed Beck 1868 births 1929 deaths Anti-communist terrorism Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to the Russian Empire Muslims from the Russian Empire Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Sweden Prisoners who died in Swedish detention Russian anti-communists Russian people imprisoned abroad Russian serial killers Russian people who died in prison custody Russian people convicted of murder Russian prisoners sentenced to death MI6 personnel People imprisoned on terrorism charges People convicted of murder by Sweden Prisoners sentenced to death by Sweden White Russian emigrants to Sweden