On 14 July 1958, the night before King Faisal’s wedding, officers led by Abd al-Karim Qasim stormed the Rihab Palace. Faisal surrendered but was forced with his aunt, uncle and mother to stand in the courtyard, where they were machine-gunned down. ‘All I did was remember Palestine,’ said one of the assassins, ‘and the trigger on the machine gun just set itself off.’ The bodies were dragged down al-Rashid Street, stripped, mutilated, beheaded, stomped on, dismembered, gutted and dangled from balconies before being burned.
