The Secretary of State to Minister Leishman.
Washington, November 11, 1905.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch No. 1180 of the 20th ultimo, reporting that Charles Vartanian and Hovhanes Afarian were taken to the criminal court at Stamboul on the 19th ultimo, where they were tried and condemned, the former, who was the principal in the assassination of Apik Effendi Oundjian, being sentenced to death, and the latter, as an accomplice, to fifteen years’ imprisonment at hard labor.
The formal protest against the action of the Turkish Government, which you filed with the Turkish minister for foreign affairs, and of which a copy accompanies your dispatch, anticipated to a large degree the Department’s telegram to you of the 26th ultimo, directing you to [Page 898] ask for a stay of proceedings in the Vartanian and Afarian cases, to enable the two governments to consider and adjust the long-pending questions of jurisdiction and citizenship. Your note of protest is therefore approved by the Department.
I am, etc.,