The Norwegian Cabinet will meet Friday and there were conflicting reports on whether it would again review the status in Norway of Yigal Eyal, an Israeli Embassy official. Two of the six suspects arrested in connection with the murder of Mohammed Boushicki, both Israelis, were seized in Eyal’s home. The Cabinet, at a special session last Friday, decided not to expel Eyal.
At the close of the meeting, Norwegian Foreign Minister Dagfin Vaarvik declared that Norway had no "formal proof" of the complicity of Israeli officials, although he said "some indications permit us to suppose a certain link between them and this affair."
Official government spokesmen declined today to say whether a definite decision on Eyal’s status would be made Friday. Government sources said some Norwegian Ministers feel no decision on Eyal should be made until the six suspects are tried on charges of murder and espionage. Those Ministers, the sources said, feel that only evidence found to be reliable by a court of law should be a basis for expelling a diplomat from a friendly country.
Other Ministers reportedly believe the existing evidence warrants Eyal’s expulsion, stressing the presence of the two arrested Israelis in Eyal’s home and the fact that phone operators connected the suspects in Lillehammer, the scene of the killing, with Eyal’s residence in Oslo.
The Norwegian newspaper, Allenblad, said here today that Meir Rosenne, Israel’s Foreign Ministry legal advisor, who was initially refused permission to talk to the two arrested Israelis after he came to Oslo two weeks ago, was allowed to meet with them secretly last week.
Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren paid a visit to Carmiel in the upper Galilee which is inhabited by many new immigrants from Russia, some of whom are of mixed marriages, and said that every effort would be made to hasten the procedure of conversion to Judaism. For that purpose, he said, special ulpanim for studying Judaism will be setup at Carmiel so that there would be no need to go to the larger cities for that. He called on all mixed families to undergo the necessary procedure for conversion and circumcision.
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.
