in 1951 for home. it had lost thirteen officers and other ranks. Britain declared victory over the MNLA on 31 July 1960, ending the Malayan Emergency. The Batang Kali Massacre Several months after being stationed in Malaya, the Scots Guards committed war crimes by executing innocent and unarmed villagers and burning down civilian homes. This event became known as the Batang Kali massacre. In December 1948, the Scots Guards surrounded a rubber plantation close to the Batang Kali river and rounded up the entire population of the village, approximately 50 people. Soon afterwards the Scots Guards began abusing the villagers and started psychologically torturing them by staging mock executions. After segregating the men from the women and children, the Scots Guards rounded up all the men and executed them all, with one exception who survived by playing dead. The Scots Guards had murdered 24 unarmed civilians, and afterwards burnt down the village after evicting all the women and children. Many of the bodies of those executed were found to have been mutilated. The Batang Kali massacre has been described as both "Britain's My Lai", and the killings as "one of the most contentious in British colonial history." In order to protect the Scots Guards, senior British diplomats introduced a "license to kill" law to legalise British colonial war crimes. Despite pleas from the families of the victims, British courts ruled against the families, citing that the year the massacre was committed. However British courts had conceded that the massacre had indeed taken place, after hearing witness testimonies from member of the Scots Guards, the victim's families, and by examining declassified British military archives. The Cyprus Emergency and Suez Crisis In late 1951, the 1st Battalion deployed to Cyprus with the rest of the 32nd Guards Brigade, and in February the following year, the battalion deployed to the Suez Canal Zone after the Egyptian government abrogated the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 which had given the British a base in the Suez Canal Zone, and was intended to expire in 1956. During its time in Egypt, the battalion performed a number of tasks, including the usual patrolling and guarding, which at times, tended to be monotonous and uneventful, though at others, such duties sometimes involved incidents which included coming under attack from Egyptians, including by snipers as well as rioting taking place. The battalion remained in Egypt until late 1954, when it,