The new President of Uganda, Prof. Yusufu Lule, has assured Israeli journalist Danny Bloch, son of the late Dora Bloch, that everything will be done to bring his mother’s killers to justice. Lule’s private secretary responded by cable over the weekend to a cable sent by Bloch inquiring whether efforts would be made to bring the murderers to justice and pointing at deposed Uganda ruler ldi Amin’s British aide, Bob Astles, as someone who possibly had a hand in killing Mrs. Bloch.
The elderly British-Israeli woman was killed in Kampala after an Israeli commando team freed more than 100 hostages July 3, 1976, including dozens of Israelis, who were being held by Palestinian terrorists at Entebbe-Airport after they hijacked an Air France airliner. It is widely believed that Mrs. Bloch, who was one of the hostages, was taken from her hospital bed in Kampala where she was being treated for a throat ailment, and killed under instructions from Amin.
In the cable from Kampala, the aide wrote on behalf of the President: “His Excellency … acknowledges your cable on behalf of the sons of the late Dora Bloch. The wanton murder of the late Dora Bloch and of thousands of other innocent victims by Amin and his terror gangs has shocked all Ugandans and indeed the world community.
“The new government shall endeavor to trace all culprits with a view to bringing them face the law (sic). Your concern about Bob Astles has already been taken very seriously by the new government and when the details and truth are established the government shall certainly contact you. Regards and thanks for your well wishes to the people of Uganda….”
Bloch said today that a hospital doctor who had secretly hidden his late mother’s personal effects after she was abducted from the hospital had now come forward and identified himself– and the family hoped these effects would soon be restored to them.
Bloch, a Davar reporter, said the family was hoping Dora Bloch’s burial place would be found “among those of thousands of other Amin victims” so that she could be reinterred in the burial plot she had purchased for herself during her lifetime in Jerusalem. Bloch said he or one of his two brothers was ready to go to Kampala immediately to help with the inquiries if required.
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.
