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Britain Starts Probe into Sale of Reconditioned Arms to Egypt

December 21, 1955
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The Foreign Office has initiated an investigation into the sale of surplus British Army supplies, after refurbishing in Belgium, to Egypt, it was announced here today.

Such equipment, including tanks and Bren gun carriers, were loaded aboard an Egyptian freighter at the Belgian port of Antwerp yesterday after having been reconditioned in a plant in that city. The “surplus” supplies were originally obtained by British scrap dealers, ostensibly for civilian use after reconditioning. The British Government is expected to introduce shortly regulations designed to prevent this “evasion” of export regulations.

The Daily Express reported today that its Antwerp correspondent, who witnessed the loading of 15 Valentine tanks onto an Egyptian vessel, was driven off the pier by Egyptian sailors who manhandled him, waved wrenches in his face and threatened to kill him as an “Israeli spy.”

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