The Miernik Dossier

81. FROM THE FILES OF CHIEF INSPECTOR ALY QASIM.

Acting on my orders, Constable Mirghani rejoined the main force of the Anointed Liberation Front and delivered a letter from me to Qemal. Mirghani had been lightly wounded in the action at Kashgil and he was unable to travel until the night of 13th July. He told Qemal, again on my instructions, that he had been captured by the police, questioned by me, and given his freedom on condition that he deliver the letter. Qemal may or may not have accepted this story, but he took no action against Mirghani. Instead, he sent Mirghani back to me with a verbal message that he would meet Prince Kalash on the morning of 15th July at a place west of Mellit, about fifty miles west-northwest of El Fasher. He guaranteed that he would come alone and unarmed.

I informed Prince Kalash of these arrangements. He was provided with an escort from the Amir’s household: two men armed with Sten guns and revolvers. On 14th July I requested the commander of the army troops to station a squad of picked men on the high ground surrounding the meeting place as additional protection for Prince Kalash. In the event of any untoward event, these men were to intervene at once. They took up their positions the night before. They were armed with machine guns, a mortar, and grenades in addition to their rifies. They were equipped with a radio transmitter. Other troops were positioned to intercept any persons attempting to escape the meeting place.

Prince Kalash took the man Miernik with him to the rendezvous. I had no foreknowledge of this incredible action. After the fact, I learned that the Amir believed he was doing me a service in delivering Miernik into the hands of the ALF. On 14th July, the day before Prince Kalash’s meeting with his half brother Qemal, I had confided to the Amir my suspicion that Miernik might be a Soviet agent sent to take command of the ALF. The Amir decided to test my theory. “One assumed that Qemal was waiting for this foreigner,” the Amir told me. “If Miernik joined him, then his guilt was established.”

It was useless to point out to the Amir that Miernik’s disappearance proved nothing. We can never be certain that the man was not abducted by Qemal and his thugs. By putting Miernik out of our reach, the Amir put him beyond proof of my suspicions. He also put in hazard all the carefully laid plans that depended on a successful meeting between Prince Kalash and his half brother. I feared that Qemal, seeing Miernik in Prince Kalash’s company, would smell betrayal.

However, Qemal kept the rendezvous. He apparently had concealed himself some time earlier in the small trees that grow nearby. The troops did not discover him until he walked out of the trees and presented himself to Prince Kalash. Qemal’s unsuspicious behaviour had something to do with the fact that Prince Kalash had left Miernik approximately one mile to the south, at the site of some stone ruins. Because the troops had no orders to watch Miernik-his presence had not been anticipated and therefore was not dealt with in their instructions-they kept no watch on him. (I digress to remark that this blind stupidity is typical military behaviour.)

Qemal agreed to assemble the personnel of the ALF shortly after dawn on 17th July at their headquarters. He gave Prince Kalash the precise location of this place. The main ALF camp was located between the east and middle forks of the Wadi Magrur, fifty miles west of Malha. Prince Kalash provided me with no details of his remarks to Qemal, except to say that he had greeted him as a brother. The lieutenant in charge of the troops reports that Prince Kalash, on meeting Qemal, embraced him.

After their conversation was concluded, Qemal disappeared on foot into the bush. Prince Kalash turned his Land Rover around and returned to the ruins where he had left Miernik. Miernik was not there. Prince Kalash was observed calling Miernik’s name, and he and his bodyguards conducted a search of the area that lasted for the better part of an hour.

The troops did not interfere. They had earlier observed a second Land Rover, which had been concealed in the bush, proceeding in a southeasterly direction through open country. It contained four men but the distance was too great to permit identification.

Prince Kalash afterwards reported that he and his men found Land Rover tracks beginning at a point about two hundred yards from the stone ruins. The tracks led in a southeasterly direction.

Only after intensive questioning did Prince Kalash tell me that he had taken Miernik into the desert, and there abandoned him, on the Amir’s orders. It was a bitter task for the prince. He felt that he had deceived, and perhaps killed, his companion. “Qemal got a look of madness in his eyes when I told him I’d brought Miernik along,” Kalash said. “He went off snarling about the Russians. I tried to beat him back to the ruins. I wanted to get Miernik away from there. But he was gone. Prince Kalash was by now convinced that a mistake had been made. He wanted to pursue Qemal and Miernik in my helicopter, but I could not permit that. The Amir forbade Prince Kalash to involve himself in any kind of a rescue attempt. ‘Kalash says this Pole is a harmless fool,” said the Amir. “Aly states that he is a Communist spy, Qemal thinks he is a Russian. Let Qemal decide what to do with him.”