Constantinople, Wednesday
How one of the twenty-eight sheiks and members of the Nakshi-Bindi sect of dervishes who were sentenced to be hanged at Menemen at dawn yesterday, made a dramatic escape from the gallows, is now revealed. The prisoners were sentenced to the death penalty for their part in the revolutionary outbreak in the Menemen district of Smyrna on December 23rd last year, and were led out in white shirts to the gallows erected in different parts of the town.
One of them, a man named Hussein, 25 years old, suddenly broke away from the hands of the gipsy hangman, made a dash through the cordon of troops, and, in spite of a burst of firing from the guard, made good his escape in the dark through the winding narrow streets. In spite of an active search the dervish who cheated death is still at large.
The Irish Times, February 5th, 1931