The Israel Cabinet today discussed the verdict issued by the Egyptian military court in Cairo sentencing two Jews to death and six others to long terms of imprisonment on charges of “spying” for Israel.
Protest meetings against the Cairo verdict were held today in all parts of Israel, with speakers calling on the Egyptian Government to commute the sentences and not to increase further the tension between Israel and Egypt.
A public defense committee organized in behalf of the Jewish defendants last month, and composed of representatives of every shade of political opinion in Israel, issued a statement today calling the Cairo sentences “vindictive” and labeling them “a travestry on justice.” These “inflammatory sentences” will have an effect on the Israel and Egyptian peoples which will be “felt for many a long year,” the statement said.
Asserting that the ruling regime, headed by Premier Gamel Nasser, bears the “gravest responsibility” for the trial and for any blood spilled under his orders, the defense committee urged Col. Nasser to “show wisdom and mercy alike by commuting these cruel sentences which, if carried out, must redound to the everlasting shame of his government and his country.”
(In Paris, the executive committee of the World Jewish Congress asked Egypt to commute the death sentences of the two convicted men. In Rome, the Union of Jewish Communities and Rabbinical Council issued an appeal to the Italian people requesting intervention “in the most appropriate forms with those on whose final decision the destiny of life or death for two human beings depends.”)
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