Executive Council May Yet Grant Full Pardon to Urphali

The decision of the Executive Council of Palestine to commute the death sentence of Joseph Mizrachi Urphali, the only Jew hitherto still under the death sentence as the result of the events growing out of last Summer’s riots, to ten years in prison instead of granting a full pardon for which Urphali’s counsel petitioned, is understood to be due to the absence of the chief justice and the other British judges.

Despite their absence, however, the reprieve was issued because of the government’s anxiety to assure the Jewish public that the death sentence would not be carried out, something for which Arab public opinion clamored. Apparently satisfied that the dismissal of Urphali’s appeal by the Privy Council was due only to technical reasons the government took into consideration the recommendation for mercy that was attached to the judges’ decision in sentencing Urphali. This recommendation for mercy not only weighed in the decision granting the reprieve but may yet lead to a further reconsideration.

Just a few hours before the announcement of Urphali’s reprieve was issued, the English edition of the Hebrew daily, “Davar,” devoted its entire issue to a full documented history of the case and proposed the appointment of “a capable person in whom complete confidence can be reposed with a view to instituting a thorough investigation concerning the preparation of the case.”

This suggestion followed a plea that Urphali was innocent and a suggestion that the case against him was framed. To substantiate this charge the paper pointed out that at both trials the judges had found Urphali guilty despite flagrant inconsistencies and contradictions in the testimony of the Arab witnesses for the prosecution.