At least 20 and possibly twice that number of persons will be tried in Lebanon this week on charges of espionage for Israel, it was reported here today in dispatches from Beirut.
The Lebanese authorities have refused to give names of numbers of persons involved Reports in the Lebanese press vary from about a score of defendants to the report in the English-language Beirut Daily Star which says that the Attorney General is asking the death penalty for 24 persons and imprisonment for another 23.
News of the arrests broke as a surprise in Beirut, the dispatches received here today state, since Lebanon has the least number of incidents with Israel of any of the Arab countries bordering on the Jewish State. The reports assert that the defendants will be charged with giving various forms of aid and assistance to Israel.
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