The trial of 24 Jewish settlers from the colony of Birya arrested Feb. 28 following an alleged attack on an Arab Legion camp near the settlement opened today before a military court at Safad. The charge against them is illegal possession of arms. The prisoners went on a four-day hunger strike early this month to protest police brutality.
Peter Martusch, a Palestinian Jewish sailor in the British Navy, who was charged with illegal possession of explosives following his arrest aboard the destroyer Chevron in Haifa harbor, was today sentenced to six years by a military court at Haifa. Martusch was one of 13 seamen arrested aboard the Chevron on May 1 for complicity in an alleged plot to blow up the vessel. Eleven of the group were freed and the twelfth, another Palestinian Jew, was sentenced without a trial to one year’s detention.
Twenty-three Palestinian Jews detained in Eritrean internment camps during the war were returned to Palestine last Monday, it was announced today. The 23 will be held at the Latrun detention camp near Jerusalem. It is reported they will be released soon. Among the returned prisoners is Dr. S. Yunitchmann, a leader of the Zionist-Revisionist movement.
(In Commons yesterday Colonial Secretary George Hall announced that 345 Arabs and 93 Jews had been arrested for illegal possession of arms during the last six months. Of this number, 159 Arabs and 17 Jews have already been tried and 122 Arabs and 14 Jews convicted.)
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.
