Scotland Yard Says Pair Taken into Custody in Arabs Plot to Kidnap Prominent Jews

Scotland Yard disclosed today that two persons have been taken into custody in connection with an alleged plot of Arab terrorists to kidnap two prominent Anglo-Jewish millionaires and their families and hold them for ransom. A Scotland Yard spokesman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the two persons have been remanded–meaning they were refused bail pending an investigation. He said no further comment could be made under the circumstances but that police were taking “necessary steps” without waiting for court proceedings.

Details of the alleged plot were published today in the Evening News. According to the paper, the victims were to be Charles Clore, 65, chairman of the multi-million dollar Sears Group, and of Self ridges, a leading London department store, and a director of several other companies; and Lord Seiff of Brimpton, 80, president of the Marks and Spencer Stores, a vice president of the World Jewish Congress and an honorary president of the British Zionist Federation. Both men have been major contributors to the Joint Palestine Appeal, the British fund-raising campaign for Israel.

The Evening News said that they and their families were to have been drugged and flown out of the country to El Fatah hideouts in the Middle East, Huge sums were to be demanded in ransom to finance El Fatah operations along with the release of all Arab terrorists held in Israel and other countries as the price for their lives, the News claimed.

The Evening News also claimed to have information that Arab terrorist organizations were recruiting British subjects, among them mercenaries who fought in the Congo, to destroy Israeli commercial airliners on British airfields and blow up Israeli ships in British ports.