After he was held under guard and in communicado at the Hotel Normandie here for 27 hours, Yehuda Hellman, a Palestine citizen and correspondent for the Palestine Post, English-language daily, was released at 10 p.m. last night and, as an eccentric anti-climax to the affair, was suddenly invited by Premier Sami Bey Solh of Lebanon to be his guest at a Palace banquet honoring the sub-committee of the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on Palestine.
(Hellman was arrested Monday night, together with Gerold Frank, Jewish Telegraph to Agency correspondent, on unexplained charges. Frank was subsequently released and an apology made by the secret police for his detention and questioning.)
Hellman, accompanied by the same members of the secret police who had been guarding him at his hotel where he was under “protective custody,” was greeted at the Palace by Terence Shone, the British Minister, who said: “I’m glad to see you. I personally demanded your release. Such things happen and misunderstandings are natural.”
A moment later Hellman, who had previously been asked by the secret police Whether he carried arms, after his room was searched, was greeted by Nicholas Bustros, director of protocol for the Lebanese Government, and by the Lebanese director-general of the police, who both offered toasts to his health.
The Palestine Post correspondent was then presented to the Premier, who warmly welcomed him and said, with an elaborate gesture, “Make yourself at home.”
When Hellman departed for his hotel, however, he discovered that he was followed by the same secret police detail. Moreover, his passport and identity card have still to be returned to him.
BRITISH ENVOY INTERVENED AFTER PROTEST BY HUTCHESON
It is understood here that the British envoy intervened with the Lebanese police after Judge Joseph C. Hutcheson, American member of the commission and its co-chairman, had remarked to the ambassador that he was “annoyed by such Lebanese melodramatics.”
The affair is prominently displayed today in the entire Arabic press under such headlines as “The Mystery of Room 214,” the room at the hotel shared by Hellman and Frank.
The entire matter is believed to have caused embarrassment for the Government, which is unhappy that the committee obtained this glimpse of Lebanon as a police state.
Yesterday afternoon, the committee heard representatives of the press, commercial and political groups join in denouncing Zionists as “fascists” and “imperialists” who endangered the entire Arab world.
The Government itself presented a memorandum to the committee, declaring that establishment of a Jewish state on her borders would be a threat to Lebanon.
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.
