The trial of a Polish soldier, Jan Haydamovice, charged with the deliberate murder of a Jewish taxi-driver in a Polish military camp last December opened today in the Criminal Assize Court here.
The murdered man, Salman Shuster, together with another driver Dov Blumenstein, was arrested at the camp on the evening of December 19, searched and then confined in a building which was being used as a bath house. The two man heard a Polish officer instructing the guard who had been posted outside the building, that they were to be shot if they attempted to escape.
A short time after midnight, however, the guard told the prisoners that they were free to leave. Despite Blumstein’s warning, Shuster stepped out of the door and was riddle with shots from a tommy-gun held by Haydamovioz. Thirteen bullets entered his body, which was left lying where it fell until Palestine police came to investigate the shooting the next afternoon.
What the two taxi drivers were doing at the camp, and the reason for their being detained by the Polish authorities has not been brought out. Crown counsel took up all of today’s session outlining the prosecution’s case against Haydamovicz.
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