A total of 1,350 immigration certificates have already been deducted from the new four-month quota of 6,000, it was announced today by the Palestine Government. Four hundred and fifty of the certificates cover visaless immigrants who entered during October, and the other 900 were assigned to the passengers captured aboard the Enzo Sereni on Jan. 20, the last group of which were allowed to leave the Athlit clearance camp yesterday.
The captain of the Enzo Sereni, Giovanni Massani, an Italian, went on trial yesterday in Haifa, for violating the new defense regulations, which forbid assistance to persons attempting to enter the country “illegally.” Chief prosecution witness was the captain of the British destroyer which captured the vessel. He testified that British sailors who boarded the Enzo Sereni in Palestinian waters were greeted by eight passengers armed with sub-machine-guns and revolvers.
The Chana Szenes, which was confiscated after it had discharged several hundred visaless immigrants on Dec. 26, was purchased yesterday at public auction by the Solel Beneh, the Histadruth construction cooperative, which paid $7,400 for the vessel.
The Arab News Agency reports today from Damascus that frontier guards in southern Syria recently foiled seventeen attempts by Jews to slip across the Palestine border.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.