Foreign Minister Abba Eban informed the Knesset today that the Israeli Ambassador in The Hague has been instructed to convey to the Netherlands government the concern of the Jewish people over its decision to free three former Nazi war criminals serving life sentences in a Dutch prison. Eban said, “In such a case the rule of non-intervention in the internal matters of another country must be set aside.” He spoke in reply to agenda motions submitted by Gideon Hausner, an MK who was Attorney General of Israel during the Eichmann trial and Zalman Shuval, of the State List.
The three ex-Nazis are the last of the World War II war criminals still in Dutch prisons. The government intends to release them after 25 years in jail but seeks parliamentary approval. According to a report from Amsterdam today. If the Dutch parliament, which debates the matter tomorrow, rejects a collective pardon for the prisoners, the government will free them one-by-one at short intervals. According to official sources in Amsterdam, that would correspond to the stand of the “main representatives of Dutch Jewry” which objected to a collective pardon but did not oppose freeing aging prisoners on humanitarian grounds.
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