Double prevailed here today as to whether Alexander Aharonson, a Dutch-born Jew reportedly hanged in Baghdad Nov. 3 as an alleged Israeli spy, is actually alive as the Iraqi authorities claim. Iraq has refused to permit the Dutch Charge d’Affairs in Baghdad to see Aharonson in order to confirm that he was not executed as the Iraqi news agency originally reported.
The Iraqis claim that Aharonson, a nurse who was arrested in northern Iraq last March, is an Israeli citizen and that it cannot permit a foreign power–The Netherlands–to interfere in what it regards as its own affairs. Dutch authorities say that Aharonson is a citizen of Holland where his family resides. The provincial council of Friesland where his wife and children live has cabled the Iraqi Ambassador urging Aharonson’s release if he is indeed alive.
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