Said Halim Pasha


Said Halim Pasha was an Ottoman statesman of Tosk Albanian origin who served as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1917. He was one of the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide, and was later assassinated by Arshavir Shirakian as part of Operation Nemesis, a retribution campaign to kill perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide.

Biography

Born in Cairo, Egypt, he was the grandson of the Albanian Muhammad Ali of Egypt, often considered the founder of modern Egypt.
He was one of the signers in Ottoman–German Alliance. Yet, he resigned after the incident of the pursuit of Goeben and Breslau, an event which served to cement the Ottoman–German alliance during World War I. It is claimed that Mehmed V wanted a person in whom he trusted as Grand Vizier, and that he asked Said Halim to stay in his post as long as possible. Said Halim's term lasted until 1917, cut short because of continuous clashes between him and the Committee of Union and Progress, which by then controlled the Imperial Government of the Ottoman Empire.
During the Armenian Genocide, Said Halim signed his signature on deportation orders for the Armenian population. The Armenian Patriarch Zaven I Der Yeghiayan appealed to him to cease the terror being committed against Armenians, which Said Halim replied to by claiming reports of arrests and deportations were being greatly exaggerated. Der Yeghiayan himself was later deported.
Said Halim was accused of treason during the court martial trials after World War I in the Ottoman Empire, as he had his signature under Ottoman–German Alliance. He was exiled on 29 May 1919 to a prison on Malta. He was acquitted from the accusations and set free in 1921, and he moved to Sicily. He wanted to return to the Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, but this request was rejected. He was assassinated soon after in Rome by Arshavir Shirakian, an agent of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, for his role in the Armenian Genocide.

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