The families of the two Israeli magazine editors imprisoned for publishing information connected with the State’s security, appealed today to President Zalman Shazar to pardon the two men.
The appeal, which was filed on behalf of Shmuel Mor and Maxim Gilan, editor and assistant editor respectively of “Bul” magazine, contended that the two editors were guilty of a “journalistic blunder” and had no intention of violating or hurting the security of the State.
The Government denied last night that the Moroccan intelligence service had asked the Israeli intelligence to help kidnap Mehdi Ben Barka, the Moroccan opposition leader missing since 1965. The two editors were sentenced to one year each for publishing hints of Israeli involvement in the Ben Barka affair.
David Landor, the Government press officer, called “a fantastic invention” the report about the Moroccan intelligence service request, which appeared yesterday in the Paris newspaper France-Soire. The French newspaper reported that Ben Barka, who is believed to be dead, was lured from Switzerland to Paris and kidnapped in Paris in October, 1965.
The France-Soir article said that the Israeli agents had refused to cooperate in the kidnapping and that Israeli silence on the alleged request had been based on an unwillingness to confirm that the Israeli secret service maintained good relations with its counterpart in Morocco, a Moslem country.
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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.
