The trial of the three Revisionists, Aba Achimeier, Zvi Rosenblatt and Abraham Stavsky for the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, entered its third week today with the case for the prosecution still unfinished.
Moishe Cohen, police stool pigeon, who was arrested last August 7 and placed in the same cell with Rosenblatt, occupied the witness stand all day today.
Cohen testified that he had won Rosenblatt’s confidence and that the latter had read to him a letter allegedly received from Vladimir Jabotinsky, leader of the Revisionists, encouraging his arrested followers.
He declared that he had noted Rosenblatt’s girlish hands and had asked “how can such hands hold a revolver?” “It is a fact that it is these hands which held the gun,” Rosenblatt is alleged to have replied.
RELATED STORY OF MEETING
Cross-examined by Attorney General Harry Herbert Trusted, who is in charge of the prosecution, Cohen told how in a burst of confidence Rosenblatt related the story of his meeting with Mrs. Arlosoroff in the office of Chief Investigator Rice and added that if she had known he was really Dr. Arlosoroff’s murderer, she wouldn’t have looked so straight into his eyes.
Cohen testified that he had held only one conversation with Rosenblatt, since he was placed on trial the next day and transferred to a different cell.
Defense attorney Horace Samuel then took the witness in hand. “Why were you arrested?” he asked Cohen. The witness replied that he was charged with stealing a watch belonging to his sister or a boarder in his home. He admitted that no complaint about the theft was lodged with the police and that he was on good terms with both his sister and boarder before and after his arrest. He said that he had found it convenient to be convicted and spend some time in jail.
“Did you desire a jail term in order to obtain a confession from Rosenblatt?” Samuel asked. “I am not obliged to answer,” Cohen replied. Ordered by Presiding Judge Corrie to answer, Cohen replied that he did not remember his exact reasons. “It wasn’t because I wanted to get a statement from Rosenblatt,” he said. “I really don’t remember the real reason.”
ADMITS JAIL TERM
Cohen admitted that he was sentenced to a fifteen-day term, but remained in jail only two days. He was in a cell with ten Arabs, but asked to be transferred to another cell. He admitted that he was not surprised when he was placed in the same cell with Rosenblatt because he had hoped that this would happen.
He told Rosenblatt he was a Revisionist arrested for having in his posession secret documents. He did this to obtain the confidence of the arrested Revisionist, he admitted. Asked whether a jail official told him to obtain a confession from Rosenblatt, Cohen answered that he didn’t remember, but was not prepared to swear he wasn’t told so.
“My saying that I was a Revisionist is a lie,” he said, “some-times I am in the habit of telling lies.”
“Did the police ask you to spy on the Revisionists?” Cohen was asked. “I am not prepared to swear that it wasn’t so,” he answered.
Upon a suggestion from Samuel that the alleged letter shown by Rosenblatt to Cohen was not a letter, but a typewritten copy of an article by Jabotinsky on the Jewish situation in Russia, Cohen replied that he was sure it was a letter from Jabotinsky.
DENIES CONVERSATION WAS LIE
Cohen denied indignantly a statement by Samuel that his alleged conversation with Rosenblatt was a “lie from end to end.” He declared that the conversation was absolutely correct.
Asked why he was released after three days, although sentenced to fifteen days, Cohen replied that he was ignorant of the reasons.
Was it not true that the police arranged for him to go to jail only to obtain a confession from Rosenblatt? Samuel asked him. “I can’t swear that it wasn’t so,” he replied.
Cohen concluded his testimony by stating that after his release he was employed by the police.
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