Media report on Aga Khan III offering troops to Hitler denied

NEW DELHI: The Prince Aga Khan Shia Imami Ismaili Council for India has denied as 'baseless' a British media report that Aga Khan III offered the services of "30,000 armed Arabs to Adolf Hitler" during the Second World War and still evaded treason trial.
    
"The Daily Mail story, which asserts that Aga Khan offered '30,000 armed Arabs to help Hitler' is totally wrong and maligns a widely respected religious leader," President of the Prince Aga Khan Shia Imami Ismaili Council for India, Nizamuddin N Ajani, said here in a statement.
    
The 'Daily Mail', quoting recently released de-classified documents, had reported that the Karachi-born spiritual leader of the world's Shia Ismaili Muslims had pledged to raise an army of 30,000 Arab troops to back a Nazi occupation of Egypt, Syria and Palestine almost 60 years back.
    
However, Ajani pointed out that the documents from the British National Archives mentioned in the article "clearly showed that the sole document allegedly linking Sir Muhammad Sultan Shah - the third Aga Khan - to a promise to recruit fighters against the allies was not authentic."
   
"The document's authenticity was questioned not only by the British Foreign Office officials but also by a Switzerland-based Nazi German diplomat who had sent the document in question to his superiors in July of 1942," the statement said.