A Tel Aviv magistrate decided today that seven terrorists involved in the March 5 attack on the Savoy Hotel here will be tried by a military tribunal. Judge David Bar Ophir, who held several hearings before rendering his decision, remanded the terrorists to prison pending trial, Legal authorities said they were liable for capital punishment because of the severe charges against them. Under Israeli law, a military tribunal may impose the death penalty if one or more civilian Jurists sit on the panel.
The attack on the Savoy, a small hotel near the Tel Aviv beach front, resulted in the deaths of 15 persons, including seven of the eight terrorists who carried out the attack, and 23 persons wounded. The terrorists landed on the Tel Aviv beach front from a motorized rubber dinghy that was launched from a “mother” ship several miles off shore. That vessel and its crew members were captured by the Israeli navy and taken into custody the following day.
The seven terrorists facing trial are Moussa Jama’a, 23, the sole survivor of the gang that attacked the hotel and then blew up its top floor as police and soldiers closed in; and the six men captured at sea. The latter were identified as Hammad Darwish, said to be the El Fatah commander who was in charge of the operation; Issa Al Reedy, 24, captain of the “mother” ship; Mahir Al Reedy, 30; Mouhammed Ben Elhalili, 33; Mouhammed Gouda, 31; and Mouhammed Sa’ad, 25, They were identified as being of Lebanese, Syrian and Egyptian nationality.
At the hearing, police Sgt. Major Yehezkel Nahum said an investigation disclosed that the terrorists had sailed from Tyre, in southern Lebanon and approached the Israeli coast near Tel Aviv under cover of darkness. The attack party landed on the beach shortly after 11 p.m. local time.
Darwish insisted in court that he was not involved in the operation. He claimed he was Just a mechanic who was sent along to see to it that the dinghy’s motor worked properly and that he had warned the terrorists that their mission would fail, Earlier, Darwish’s story was that he supervised the launching of the dinghy and was to report back to Beirut on that aspect of the mission.
LEGAL QUESTIONS STUDIED
Before remanding the terrorists for trial, Judge Bar Ophir studied legal questions that were first raised when Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped by Israeli agents in Argentina in 1960 and brought to trial in Israel. It was contended by some legal authorities at that time that Israel had no legal Jurisdiction over crimes committed outside its territory and, in Eichmann’s case, committed before the Israeli State existed.
Those questions applied to the trial of the terrorists who were captured at sea, outside Israel’s territorial waters, But the magistrate said he based his decision on legal precedents of courts in various countries, notably Britain, that a court need not be concerned with how the defendant is brought before it as long as the charges are brought under the laws of the country of trial.
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