IOR/R/15/2/675

The file comprises copies of official notices and correspondence relating to prize jurisdiction in the Persian Gulf (the capture of enemy vessels and cargo) during the Second World War, based on the understanding, as described in a letter from the Political Resident to his Agents, dated 16 November 1939, that, ‘as Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States are on the side of Great Britain the Crown has the right to exercise prize jurisdiction in these States’ (ff 2-3).

The file includes:

• two printed copies of a booklet entitled Provisional Rules and Orders, 1939: Prize Courts: Order in Council dated September 2, 1939. Made under Section 3 of the Prize Courts Act, 1894 (57 & 58 Vict. C. 39) (ff 6-59, ff 61-114);
• a printed copy of an Order in Council entitled Reprisals for restricting German Commerce, dated 27 November 1939 (ff 117-118), and a press statement, issued by the Press Section of the Ministry of Economic Warfare, dated 28 November 1939, relating to the issue of the Order in Council (f 120);
• correspondence relating to a Danish tanker, the Eleonora Maersk (also spelt Elonora Maersk and Eleanora Mearsk) which arrived in Bahrain from Iran, in April 1940. In a letter to the Political Resident (Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Geoffrey Prior) the Political Agent at Bahrain (Hugh Weightman) stated that the Senior Naval Officer in the Persian Gulf has received instructions from the East Indies Commander-in-Chief that the vessel should be sent to Karachi, presumably as prize (ff 121-124);
• a Department of Commerce notification, dated 31 August 1940, stating that measures taken against German shipping can now be applied to Italian shipping (f 131);
• communications relating to prize procedure in respect of Finland, Hungary, Rumania [Romania] and Japan (ff 139-142).