Early life
Mahmood Hussein Mattan was born in British Somaliland in 1923 and his job as a merchant seaman took him to Wales where he settled inConviction for murder
Murder and investigation
Lily Volpert, a 42-year-old woman who owned a general outfitter's shop in the Cardiff Docklands area, was murdered on the evening of 6 March 1952. After closing the shop at around 8.05 p.m., she was about to have supper with her family in the back room when the doorbell rang. Her sister and mother saw a man outside the shop door and Lily went to deal with him. A few minutes later her niece saw her talking to an apparently different man at the door. Soon afterwards her body was found in the shop by another customer. Her throat had been cut with a razor or sharp knife, and it seemed that at least ยฃ100 () had been stolen. TheCommittal proceedings
The prosecution case was presented at the committal proceedings in Cardiff magistrates' court on 16-18 April. Beforehand, the police confronted Mattan with another witness, a 12-year-old girl who had called at the shop at around 8 p.m. and had seen a dark-skinned man nearby. But she said Mattan was not the man she had seen. During the hearing, Mary Tolley changed her evidence again, failing to identify Mattan as the man who had come into the shop. But another witness, Harold Cover, a Jamaican with a history of violence, did identify him. He had walked past the shop around the time of the murder and had seen two Somalis outside. One was walking out of the porch and the other - a six-foot-tall man - was standing near the door. In court he said the first man was Mattan. In fact, he had earlier identified the first man as another Somali living in the area at the time, Tahir Gass, but this did not become publicly known until 1998. The outcome was that Mattan was committed for trial.Trial
The trial took place at the Glamorgan Assizes in Swansea on 22-24 July 1952. Harold Cover was the main prosecution witness. Another witness, May Gray, gave evidence that she had seen Mattan with a wad of banknotes soon after the murder. But Mattan's counsel suggested she was lying and motivated by a reward of ยฃ200 () that had been offered by the Volpert family, of which Cover later received part. Evidence was also presented that microscopic specks of blood had been found on a pair of Mattan's shoes. But the shoes had been reclaimed from a salvage dump and there was no scientific evidence linking the blood to the murder. Although Mary Tolley gave evidence, the jury was not told that other witnesses had failed to identify Mattan. Mattan's barrister succeeded in having a large part of the prosecution evidence ruled inadmissible because of the restrictions that then existed on questioning suspects in custody. But in his closing speech he described his client as "Half-child of nature; half, semi-civilised savage". These comments may have prejudiced the jury and undermined Mattan's defence. Mattan was convicted of the murder of Lily Volpert and the judge passed the mandatory sentence of death.Execution
Mattan was refused leave to appeal and to call further evidence in August 1952, and the Home Secretary decided he would not be reprieved. On 3 September 1952, six months after the murder of Volpert, he was hanged at Cardiff Prison. He was the last person to be hanged at the prison.Subsequent events
In 1954 Tahir Gass, the man seen outside Lily Volpert's shop by Harold Cover, was convicted of murdering wages clerk Granville Jenkins in a country lane near Newport, Monmouthshire. Jenkins had been stabbed to death in a frenzied attack. At Gass's trial, medical evidence was presented that he was suffering from schizophrenia and was delusional. He was found to be insane and sent to Broadmoor, but less than a year later he was discharged and repatriated to the protectorate of British Somaliland, later part ofPosthumous appeal
The first attempt to overturn Mattan's conviction came in 1969 after Harold Cover's conviction for attempted murder had raised concerns about the case in Cardiff. But the Home Secretary James Callaghan decided not to reopen the case. By this stage, three years had passed since the death penalty's abolition. In 1996 the family was given permission to have Mattan's body exhumed and moved from a felon's grave at the prison to be buried in consecrated ground in a Cardiff cemetery. His tombstone says: "KILLED BY INJUSTICE." When theIn popular culture
Nadifa Mohamed's novel '' The Fortune Men'' (2021) is based on the murder of Lily Volpert and the trial and execution of Mahmood Hussein Mattan. It was shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize.References
Bibliography
* Roy Davies, ''Crogi ar Gam? Hanes Llofruddiaeth Lily Volpert'', Wasg Gomer (2000). * John J. Eddleston, ''A Century of Welsh Murders and Executions'', The History Press (2008). * Alan Llwyd, ''Cymru Ddu: Hanes Pobl Dduon Cymru/Black Wales: A History of Black Welsh People'', Hughes and Son (2005). * Michael Mansfield, ''Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer'', Bloomsbury (2009). * John Minkes and Maurice Vanstone, ''Gender, Race and the Death Penalty: Lessons from Three 1950s Murder Trials'', Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 45(4), 403โ420 (2006). * Nadifa Mohamed, ''The Fortune Men'', Viking (2021). * Chris Phillips, ''Hanged for the Word If: The murder of Lily Volpert and the execution of Mahmood Hussein Mattan'', the author (2020). * David Thomas, ''Seek Out the Guilty'', Long (1969) (chapter on the murder of Granville George Jenkins by Tahir Gass). * Geoff Tibballs, ''Legal Blunders'', Robinson (2000).External links
* . 24 February 1998. Judgment. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mattan, Mahmood Hussein 1923 births 1952 deaths 1952 murders in the United Kingdom 20th-century sailors 20th-century Somalian people Executed British people Overturned convictions in the United Kingdom Somalian emigrants to the United Kingdom Somalian people executed abroad 20th-century executions by England and Wales Somalian people convicted of murder People convicted of murder by England and Wales Executed Somalian people Wrongful executions People executed for murder People from Butetown British Somaliland people British Merchant Navy personnel People executed by the United Kingdom by hanging