Three members of the Arab Executive arrested in October in connection with the abortive demonstrations in Jerusalem on October 13, were found guilty this afternoon by Chief Magistrate Bodilly after an extended hearing. Judgment was reserved for further consideration.
The court-room was crowded to suffocation here today as the hearings were brought to a conclusion, the crowd including many blackveiled women of prominent Moslem families.
The attorney for the defendants, in his final plea, claimed that the Palestine government had not forbidden the procession in the Old City of Jerusalem and that therefore it was a lawful assembly. He also asserted that the defendants had not participated actively in the demonstration and had not incited the mob to attack the police.
Throughout the hearing, the defendants claimed that while they knew the demonstration scheduled to take place at the Jaffa Gate had been forbidden, they had not known that demonstrations at the New Gate and at Damascus Gate were also under police ban. Several demonstrators and police were wounded when police broke up the prohibited protests against Jewish immigration into Palestine.
After the conviction was announced, the spectators dispersed, shouting “Long live the national martyrs!” No further incidents, however, occurred.
Leaders of the Arab crowd which rioted at Jaffa and fought a pitched battle with the police there on Oct. 27, will go on trial in magistrate’s court Monday. A general strike in Jaffa has been proclaimed by the Arab Executive to start simultaneously with the hearing.
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.
