The Tel Aviv District Court today rejected an appeal for release on bail of Yaacov Herouti, member of an underground group which was charged with plotting to bomb the Russian Embassy in Tel Aviv. The court said Mr. Herouti’s release might constitute a danger “to the public and the State. “
Dr. N. Barzakkai, court president, in rejecting the plea, declared he was accepting the statement of Israel’s intelligence service chief, who testified for two days against the appeal. The intelligence chief, whose name was withheld, asserted that the underground group, “Sarafand,” hoped to provoke Russian military intervention and American counter-intervention by the proposed bombing.
Mr. Herouti is awaiting trial on charges of complicity in the assassination last April of Dr. Rudolf Kastner, who had been the central figure in a hotly-debated charge of collaborating with the Nazis in Hungary. Mr. Herouti also was charged with distribution of a pamphlet containing an allegedly slanderous attack on the Jerusalem judge who presided in a trial involving the collaboration charges against Dr. Kastner.
Dr. Barzakkai, in denying the release on bail plea, said he could not ignore the possibility that Mr. Herouti, if released, might influence potential witnesses in his trial. The judge also noted the intelligence chief had testified that Mr. Herouti might carry out sabotage and other acts of violence, on order of the underground, even while awaiting trial. Mr. Herouti’s attorney said he would appeal to a higher court.
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