Relatives of Defendants in the Underground Trial Demand That Their Relatives Get Leave to Spend Holi

Relatives of defendants in the Jewish underground trial sent a letter today to Police Minister Haim Barlev demanding that their relatives get leave to spend the High Holy Days with their families. The relatives also began a campaign to get rabbis to sign a petition with the same demand. The two Chief Rabbis signed.

In their letter to Barlev, the relatives demanded “at least the same treatment given to Arab detainees who were released during the recent Moslem holiday of Id AI Adha from the Ansar camp.” Ansar is a detention camp in south Lebanon. The relatives warned that if the defendants are not released for the holidays, they would conduct a protest prayer outside the Tel Mond prison, where they are held.

Meanwhile, the third day of the trial in Jerusalem was brief, less than a half hour. Michale Gal, a sapper officer at the police general headquarters laboratories, testified for the prosecution regarding explosives and other devices which were found in the homes of the defendants. The court was shown a video film which showed the devices, among them 113 old Syrian mines, 60 explosive charges and a large number of rifles.

In previous sessions of the trial, the defense persistently tried to weaken the case for the prosecution, mainly by suggesting that explosive material used to prepare bombs, which were discovered under five Arab-owned buses in Jerusalem last April 27, were spoiled and might not have been capable of causing damage or injuries.

But under questioning by the prosecution, Yonathan Licht, head of the police explosives laboratory, in Jerusalem, said that the explosives were placed under the buses in such a way that if detonated, they could have killed passengers.