130 suspects, most of whom were high officials. The indictment accused the main defendants, including Talaat, of being "mired in an unending chain of bloodthirstiness, plunder and abuses". They were accused of deliberately engineering Turkey's entry into the war "by a recourse to a number of vile tricks and deceitful means". They were also accused of "the massacre and destruction of the Armenians" and of trying to "pile up fortunes for themselves" through "the pillage and plunder" of their possessions. The indictment alleged that "The massacre and destruction of the Armenians were the result of decisions by the Central Committee of Ittihadd". The court released its verdict on 5 July 1919: Talaat's title of Pasha was stripped, and he, Enver, Cemal, Nazım, and Şakir were condemned to death in absentia. Monitoring by British intelligence The British government continued to monitor Talaat's activities after the war. The British government had intelligence reports indicating that he had gone to Germany, and the British High Commissioner pressured Ferid Pasha and the Sublime Porte to request that Germany extradite him to the Ottoman Empire. Germany was well aware of Talaat's presence but refused to surrender him. The last official interview Talaat granted was to Aubrey Herbert, a British intelligence agent. During this interview, Talaat maintained at several points that the CUP had always sought British friendship and advice, but claimed that Britain had never replied to such overtures in any meaningful way. Assassination and funeral With most CUP leaders in exile, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation organized a plot to assassinate the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide, known as Operation Nemesis. On 15 March 1921 Talaat was assassinated with a single bullet as he came out of his Hardenbergstraße flat to purchase a pair of gloves. His assassin was a Dashnak member from Erzurum named Soghomon Tehlirian, whose entire family was killed during the genocide. Tehlirian admitted to the shooting, but, after a cursory two-day trial, he was found innocent by a German court on grounds of temporary insanity due to the traumatic experience he had gone through during the genocide. Immediately after the assassination, Nazım and Şakir, who were also staying in the area, received police protection. Şakir would be assassinated a year later by a Dashnak. Initially, Talaat's friends hoped he could be buried in Anatolia, but neither the Ottoman government in Constantinople nor the Turkish nationalist movement in Ankara wanted the body;