Ibrahim Volkoff

Ibrahim Volkoff was found shot at Keele Hall Camp.

A verdict of suicide was recorded at his inquest on Saturday 1 September 1945.

He was found at the camp shot in the neck behind a hut on the night of Sunday 5 August 1945. An automatic pistol of German origin was found by his side.

The gun was later determined to have been the same gun that was used to kill Herbert Stubbs, whose murder itself is unsolved, but it was said that it did not necessarily mean that he had shot Herbert Stubbs. It was noted that the revolver might have been given to him after the murder or borrowed from him beforehand. As such, it was stated that Scotland Yard officers with the local police were still pursuing their efforts to trace the three foreign soldiers who had attacked Herbert Stubbs and his wife 16 days earlier.

A Greek soldier said that he had been talking to Ibrahim Volkoff the night before he died and said that he seemed to have something on his mind.

Ibrahim Volkoff was a Russian and was known throughout the camp as 'Russo'. He was also described as being a Turkish-speaking Russian.

His inquest was initially adjourned after a letter that was found in his kit in Russian was taken away for translation. When his inquest resumed, it was said that the letter revealed little additional evidence, although a Captain of the Palestinian Regiment that Ibrahim Volkoff had been attached said that the letter contained a passage to the effect that he was about to commit suicide.

Keele Hall Camp was associated with a number of incidents involving death or injury. Other than Ibrahim Volkoff who was found shot with the gun that was used to murder Herbert Stubbs, a Cypriot soldier was convicted of the manslaughter of another Cypriot who had been at the camp in December 1945 and in September 1945 a man was stabbed by a foreign soldier in the iron market in Newcastle and taken to hospital, a foreign knife later being found near the scene.

It was thought that he was later buried in the Free French section of Brookwood Military Cemetery with a Muslim headstone although it was not clear why that would have been the case as there was no clear evidence that he was either French or a practicing Muslim. His burial stone appears to have his name spelt Ibrahim Yolkoff.

Although his inquest returned a verdict of suicide his death is included due to both the clouded circumstances of it, and its relationship to the unsolved murder of Herbert Stubbs.

Keele Hall Camp is now the site of Keele University.