Mohammed Hadjetlaché

Background

Mohammed Beck Hadjetlaché (20 May 1868, he also sometimes stated 1870 or 1872, Istanbul - 4 November 1929, Stockholm) was a Circassian journalist and writer. He was also an SIS and cheka agent. Hadjetlaché used many assumed identities, but his real name was probably Kasi Beck Akhmetukov. Kasi Beck Akhmetukov was born in Istanbul in a Circassian family, which fled from Circassia after the Russian-Circassian War.

In 1878 his father, a Bashi-bazouk leader, was killed in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878). In 1882 he returned to Russia, and was adopted by the childless Ettinger family and called Grigory. In the 1890s he wrote and published several novels and short stories under the pen name Hadjetlaché.

In 1902 Hadjetlaché joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. In 1908 he started to publish the magazine “Moslem” in Paris and the newspaper “In the world of Islam” in Saint Petersburg.

In 1916 Hadjetlaché offered to run a “anti-German and anti-Turkish propaganda campaign among the Moslems on a worldwide scale” for the Russian government and asked for money.

He left Soviet Russia and came to Sweden in 1918. Under the cheka and SIS direction he organized a fake White Terrorist cell planning to help in the counter revolutionary struggle against the Bolsheviks with Stockholm as his base. The goal of the operation was to portray all white émigrés as bloodthirsty terrorists and provoke Swedish police actions against Russian emigrants.

Hadjetlaché purchased a house in the woods outside of Stockholm.

The offence

Hadjetlaché and his gang brought people to the house who he accused of being Bolshevik agents. He killed them, and their bodies were then dropped in a nearby lake.

When the police discovered the gang in 1919, three murdered 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 used for propaganda purposes by the Soviet press. Soviet writer Alexei Tolstoi included it in his novel “Emigrants”.

Investigation

Trial

Hadjetlaché was sentenced to death, later converted to lifetime in jail by the Swedish court.

Sentencing

His death sentence was converted to lifetime in jail by the Swedish court.

Outcome

Hadjetlaché died in 1929 in Långholmen Prison. He was the last person to be sentenced to the death penalty in Sweden.

Aftermath

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