The curious mixture of East and West that has marked the proceedings growing out of the Palestine outbreak was especially to be noted when the trial reopened of the four Arabs accused of the murder of Rabbi Kastel during the Hebron massacre. The Russian compound where the courthouse is located was filled with Arab loiterers, veiled women, the band of the South Wales Borderers and westernized Arab lawyers. Into the small whitewashed courtroom with the Royal Arms hanging over the bench, an Arab policeman with fixed bayonet led the four accused. Handcuffed, they wore castoff London jackets, dirty Arab skirts and turbans. They were unshaven and unkempt.
Chief Justice MacDonnell and Judge Defreites entered in their scarler and black robes, preceded by an attendant in baggy trousers, carrying the great sword of state. The prosecutor is a bewigged English jurist, the defense counsel, Ibrahim Kemal, a city Arab wearing a tarbush.
A witness for the prosecution testified that he saw three of the accused battering and stoning the door of Rabbi Kastel’s house. The witness stated he and his brother attempted to enter the house and rescue the rabbi and his wife, but he was unable to cope with the mob. Beaten, he escaped. Returning later, he aided the Rabbi’s wife in getting away. The witness saw looting going on, but he did not identify the looters.
An attempt to discredit the witness by implying that he participated in the looting was made by the Arab counsel. This was frustrated by the prosecution, who declared the discrediting of witnesses will have consequences, as the witness is later to be tried for looting.
An alibi was presented by the defense for one of the accused, saying he traveled from Jaffa to Jerusalem on Friday. August 23, in an automobile, spending two hours at the Jaffa Gate unloading tomatoes from the automobile. He slept in Jerusalem he stated, and returned to Hebron late Saturday Cross-examination did not shake the witness. The prosecutor’s questions brought out that it was impossible to unload tomatoes quietly at the Jaffa Gate on that Friday because of the riots. The accused’s statement that he walked through the Jewish quarter unhindered and that he entered the Old City without being searched by the British police, conflicts with the conditions prevailing at that time, the state’s attorney pointed out.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
