Malta Exiles

Malta exiles (Turkish: Malta sürgünleri) (between March 1919 – October 1920) is the term for politicians, high ranking soldiers (mainly), administrators and intellectuals of the Ottoman Empire who were sent into exile on Malta after the armistice of Mudros during the Occupation of Constantinople by the Allied forces. Malta exiles become inmates in a British prison where various Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) officials were held in the hopes that Malta Tribunals would be held at a future date.

These Ottoman politicians, generals, and intellectuals were taken out of Istanbul jails and deported to Malta, where they were held for some three years, while searches were made of archives in Constantinople, London, Paris and Washington to find proof of their guilt. Cooperation of the Sultan was seen necessary to prevent a harsher peace settlement for the Ottoman Empire (partition of territories).

At that time Turkey had two competing governments in Constantinople and Ankara.The government in Constantinople supported the inquiries with more or less seriousness depending on the current government. While grand vizir Damad Ferid Pasha (4 March - 2 October 1919 and again 5 April - 21 October 1920) stood behind the prosecuting body the government of grand vizir Ahmed Riza Pasha (2 October 1919 - 2 March 1920) made barely a mention of the legal proceedings against the war criminals. The trials helped the Liberal Union party to expel the Committee of Union and Progress from the political arena.

The competing Ankara government was strictly opposed to trials against war criminals. Mustafa Kemal reasoned about the detainees in Malta on the occasion of the congress in Sivas 4 September 1919: "...should any of the detainees either already brought or yet to be brought to Constantinople be executed, even at the order of the vile Constantinople government, we would seriously consider executing all British prisoners in our custody." From February 1921 the military court in Constantinople begun releasing prisoners without trials.