Three young Jews were sentenced to death today and one to life imprisonment by a British military court which convicted them of illegal possession of arms and offering resistance to British troops.
Hayim Goroveleki, 17, received the life term, apparently because of his youth, while Dov Rosenbaum, 24, Eliezer Kashand, 23, and Mordechai Elkushi, 21, were condomned to death. After sentence had been pronounced, they arose and sang Hatikvah.
The four were captured at a road block between Tel Aviv end Lydda on Dec. 29, during a country-wide man-hunt for members of the Irgun Zvai Leumi who flogged a British officer and several non commissioners. When they were seized in a taxi that tried to crash through the road barrier, they had a sub-machinegun, two revolvers, four bombs and two rawhide whips. A fifth man in the taxi died as a result of wounds.
The defendants today refused the aid of counsel and told the court that they would not enter a plea. It is the contention of Irgunists that they are prisoners of war and that British courts have no jurisdiction over them.
The Palestine Government has not yet set a date for the execution of Dov Gruner, a government spokesman announced today.
(A special appeal for permission to file a plea on behalf of Gruner was filed today with the Privy Council on behalf of Frank Gruner of New York, the condemned man’s uncle.)
Two alleged terrorists, Nechemia Fishbein, 20, of Tel Aviv and Itzhak Tabelski of Haifa escaped last night from the Latrun detention camp, where they had been confined for several months.
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