First Group of Arab Murderers in Safed Massacre Faces Trial at Haifa

Chained and handcuffed, seven Safed Arab bandits, accused of the murder of two Jews on August 29, were today brought from and returned to the Acre Citadel, heavily escorted by British police riding with the prisoners in the same car, followed by an armored car, while a platoon of the Green Howards regiment, steel-helmeted, reinforced the mounted and foot British and Palestine police. All were armed and kept guard around a small villa in the German colony of Haifa which was converted into the Criminal Court of Assizes.

Chief Justice Sir Michael MacDonnel came from Jerusalem to try these first murder cases arising from the anti-Jewish riots. He was assisted by Judge Litt, whose verdicts, on the one hand against 37 Arabs of Tireh, whom he gave the maximum sentence, and on the other hand against Jews accused of the possession of firearms or firing during the riots, whom he gave minimum sentences, earned for him the reputation of a firm judge.

Today only three of the seven prisoners faced trial, all for the murder of Isaac Mamaan, Hadassah mechanic of Safed, the government prosecutor adding the charge of conspiracy to that of first degree murder at the outset of the trial.

The scarlet-robed Chief Justice and his associate gave the diminutive court-house in the German colony the appearance of a British court of justice, where “Red Judges” try criminal cases, but their impressiveness and earnestness did not prevent the trial from assuming a tragi-comic aspect, owing to the absence of a suitable interpreter for English, Hebrew and Arabic, resulting in mistranslation and misunderstanding, with inevitable suppressed hissing when the tense Jewish spectators heard the evidence mutilated.

The procedure reached an impossible pass when Jacob Fishman, managing editor of the New York “Jewish Morning Journal,” ventured to speak to Government Advocate Sherwell about the insufferable misrepresentation of the evidence of Jewish witnesses, and the Advocate officially informed the court for record. The difficulty is due to the fact that the regular Hebrew court interpreter was disqualified because he is distantly related to the murdered man, while the Arab counsel objected to many excellent translators who volunteered, evidently preferring the benefit of the doubt arising from mistranslation, and the court was forced to sustain, if irritably, all objections. The counsel for these defendants includes the best Arab legal talent, while the courtroom was occupied by leading Arab notables and politicians, including the muftis of Acre and Safed and the principal sheiks of Haifa, the brilliant Arab galaxy showing determination to prevent by all legal technicalities, the three first accused from expiating the crimes, more for political reasons than in justice to the three citified ne’er-do-wells.

The accused, in a cage with two armed policemen, looked on practically indifferent, while their counsel, Moghanan and Asfour, both Christian Arabs, battled to batter down the evidence of the two witnesses, taking more than seven hours.

Dr. Bordiansky, Hadassah physician, was the first witness. Dr. Bordiansky, who treated Manaan, held his ground firmly as the Arab counsel tried to assail his testimony and question his medical standing by references to his small salary. Never once losing patience at his tormentors, the doctor, cross-examined about the language the victim spoke when he kept repeating, “Isaac dying,” fired back: “I am not an ethnographist. I don’t know what languages the Sephardic Jews usually speak, but they speak Hebrew to me.” He withstood the half-baked medicolegal assaults about the cause of the victim’s death, whether a knife or club, causing concussion of the brain, or the operation performed the next day as a last desperate resort.

Joseph Benderly proved a less satisfactory witness, wilting after a three-hour third degree, uncertain whether he identified one or two of the prisoners as those whom he saw stab and club Manaan and later with the mob which attacked a Jewish house.

The intolerable translations doubtless contributed to the Arab counsel’s efforts to compel Benderly to contradict partly the evidence given before the examining magistrate.

There are somewhat better prospects for Wednesday, when the Chief Justice promised a qualified interpreter and, among others, the widow will testify that her dying husband named two of the prisoners as his assailants.

The accused are between 25 and 30 years of age. They are all moustached, and were clean shaven evidently for the trial. Two were dressed in European clothes and one in the Arab costume. All three sported cheap pocket handkerchiefs. They clearly belong to the low class city Arabs of no definite occupation.