Charges of a conspiracy to smuggle Zionist-Revisionists into Palestine, involving bribing of British officials to permit ships to land illegal immigrants, were aired today at a hearing preliminary to trial of Police Inspector Harry Goddard and Max Seligman, a lawyer, formerly of Cardiff, Wales.
Walter Gilpin, chief of the Criminal Investigation Department for the Jaffa-Tel Aviv District testified that he had tricked Seligman and Goddard into including him in the conspiracy at a salary of £100 per shipload. He asserted that he received £35 to divert patrol boats on receiving the telephoned signal, “Thumbs up tonight!”
The District Court granted a defence motion for a separate trial before the British presiding judge alone for Goddard, who is English. The police inspector pleaded not guilty.
Seligman assented to a trial before the full bench after Defense Counsel Gotien’s plea for a jury trial, based on the Magna Carta, was denied by the court on the ground that the Palestine statutes did not provide for jury trial. The court permitted the defense to inspect secret statements to the police made by a prosecution witness. Seligman is leader of a movement to convert Palestine into a Crown colony.
The Jewish National Council has been given an allotment of immigration certificates for children of 13 to 15 having close relatives in Palestine, it was announced today. The allotment is in addition to 2,200 certificates granted, under the April to September immigration schedule announced yesterday, to the Youth Aliyah organization for immigration of student and refugee children. Categories of immigrants as specified in the immigration ordinance have not been abandoned, the new schedule simply making a distinction between “refugees” an “ordinary immigrants.” The latter group continues to be divided up into the same categories of capitalists, laborers, etc., it was explained.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
