Abdul Hamid, Arab convict and brother of Abdul Mejid, who is now the center of interest in the trial of three Revisionist Jews charged with the murder of the Zionist Laborite leader Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, testified today. Horace Samuel, defense counsel, who is putting up a strong fight to shift the burden of guilt from the three Jews, Abraham Stavsky, Zvi Rosenblatt and Aba Achimeier, to Mejid and his associate Yissa, had protested in vain against Hamid’s appearance in court.
Hamid told the court that he had occupied the same cell Mejid had occupied in prison when the latter was incarcerated for the murder of another Moslem. Hamid said that two and three times daily he saw Stavsky and Rosenblatt talking with his brother, but added that he didn’t understand their conversations, which were carried on in Hebrew. This strengthened Mejid’s claim that the Jews had carried on negotiations with him in an attempt to get him to confess the murder.
TELLS OF ALLEGED PLANS
Mejid later told him, Hamid said, that Urfali, a Jew, had been making plans to have him confess the murder of Dr. Arlosoroff. Hamid said that Stavsky and Rosenblatt had brought a rough draft of the layout of the murder togethed with a nickel Ross bullet to Mejid’s cell.
During cross-examination Samuel attempted to establish that Mejid had consulted Hamid and that Hamid had advised him to confess the murder of Arlosoroff. Hamid admitted that Mejid had confided in him his readiness to confess, but denied giving him any advice.
In the afternoon Captain Rice testified and following cross-examination by Judges Valero and Plunkett, declared he didn’t believe Yissa and Mejid had killed the Jewish doctor.
Captain Rice read evidence taken by him from Mrs. Sima Arlosoroff immediately following the murder. The evidence as Rice read it coincided fully with her own testimony before the court regarding the scene on the seashore of Tel Aviv where Dr. Arlsoroff was shot. An additional detail adduced by the police captain described Mrs. Arlosoroff shouting after her husband was killed, “Jews shot him.” The dying man had answered at once in German, “Nicht, Sima, Nicht.”
Captain Rice further testified that at nine o’clock of the same Saturday evening he had shown Mrs. Arlosoroff ten photographs of different people including Stavsky. She immediately picked out Stavsky as the guilty man, Rice said. Further examination of the photographs by Mrs. Arlosoroff, Captain Rice said, which lasted ten minutes, yielded nothing. The wife of the murdered man could not identify any of the others. Stavsky, the captain said, was arrested on the following Monday
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.
