The arrest of Saleh Shubani, of the Assasi village near Safed, on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of three members of the Jewish Labour settlement of Yadjur, indicates that the police stand by the view of the murders explained to the J.T.A. by an important member of the Criminal Investigation Branch of the Palestine Police Force (given in the J.T.A. Bulletin of the 16th. inst.), that they were not political.
Shubani is suspected of being in league with Ali Sasaani and Mahmoud Othman, members of the Ahmed Tapish brigand gang, who were captured in the neighbourhood of Safed.
Shubani’s brother, it is stated, is awaiting execution for the murder of a Druse family in Mount Carmel. He threatened to avenge his brother’s death by killing the inhabitants of the village from which the witnesses against his brother came.
With these three gangsters captured, the police believe that the solution of the Yadjur outrage is near, though they have not abandoned the possibilities of other motives for the crime.
We have the names, the police informant of the J.T.A. said, of three gangsters who intended to attack an Arab village from which witnesses came forward to give evidence against the brother of one of these gunmen, who was, in consequence, sentenced to death for murder. The village was, however, carefully guarded by villagers and police, and the gangsters, returning baffled, with murder in their hearts, suddenly encountered a cart full of singing Jews and emptied into them their rifles which had been intended to avenge the imminent death of their kinsman.
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.
