The Cyprus Supreme Court today opened hearings on a request for habeas corpus filed by displaced Jewish internees of military age who are being held in camps on the island by the British. After presentation of the Jews’ side of the case, the hearing was postponed until Friday.
The attorney for the Jews, citing a statement made in the House of Commons December 6 by Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Christopher Mayhew, charged that the Jews are being detained solely under a unilateral British interpretation of the U.N. Palestine truce resolution and not under Cyprus law. The statement of the Cyprus Government that the Jews are being held under its illegal immigrants law was “an untruth and in bad faith,” the attorney declared.
He appealed to the court to “uphold the traditions of British justice” by disbanding the concentration camps which, he said, were degrading to both the Jews inside and the British soldiers outside the barbed wire.
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