Two Israeli officers and nine border policemen killed 47 Arab villagers in Kafr Kassem last October 29 in violation of orders from superior achelons, the prosecutor told a military court trying the men today.
The prosecutor charged that the ranking officer in the unit, Maj. S. Malinski, had instructed Lt. G. Dehan and his nine men to shoot villagers returning from the fields after a curfew deadline had been set in their absence. The prosecutor said that Lt. Dehan and his men knew that the orders were illegal, and cited the fact that two other police squads under Maj. Malinski’s command had received the same orders but did not act on them in imposing curfews on neighboring villages.
The prosecutor further charged that after his men had killed 44 Arabs returning from the field, Lt. Dehan rode through Kafr Kassem firing at Arabs and personally killed three others.
The president of the three-man court, Judge Benjamin Halevy, dismissed a defense motion today demanding that he disqualify himself because he had conferred with Maj. Gen. Moshe Dayan, Army Chief of Staff, before the trial.
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