A high French police official, responsible for the control of foreigners in the country, is understood to have been relieved of duty today following the disappearance of the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem from his home in a Paris suburb where he had been held under police surveillance.
The circumstances under which the ex-Mufti left France still remain a mystery. The French Foreign Office sharply rebuked correspondents asking whether it had advance information of the ex-Mufti’s intention of escaping. One Paris newspaper reports that the foreign, office first learned of the escape through a letter from the ex-Mufti expressing thanks for the hospitality he received during his stay in France.
The correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was told at the Foreign Ministry that the police are still investigating the ex-Mufti’s departure. The correspondent has checked every airport and air service out of Paris and it appears that the ex-Mufti did not take that route out of the country. The National Railroad said there was no record of a compartment reservation for him, nor is there any report of his passing through a frontier post.
The French press reporting the ex-Mufti’s escape says that he was not really guarded. Some papers express the belief that the French Government may have facilitated his escape. The newspaper Le Monde says that neither the French nor the British were sincerely against his departure from the country. The paper emphasizes that the two governments could have considered the ex-Mufti as a war criminal if they so desired. Any protest from the British Government against the departure of the ex-Mufti will be only a formal gesture, the article declares.
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.
