Edward S, Crocker, American Ambassador to Iraq, has cabled the State Department that the seven Jews sentenced to death in Iraq were sentenced in absentia, a Department spokesman said today. However, the names of the men were not the same as those listed in the original report.
Ambassador Crocker cabled from Baghdad that 15 Jews were also sentenced to prison in absentia and that he is continuing to check into the situation, He listed those sentenced to death as: Haron Kaddouri, Edilia Gurji Vinhas, Ibrahim Nisma Shlone, Zakki Siaior, Shlome Ezra Gurji, Daniel Ezra Gurji, and Salima Salah Ibrahim. It was inferred that these men held Iraqi citizenship and are now serving in the Israeli Army.
It was further ascertained by the State Department that some Jews are being held in Baghdad for Zionist sympathies. Their number was not disclosed.
Meanwhile, a joint delegation of Congressmen is being mustered to call on Secretary of State Dean Acheson to request American intervention. The investigation was brought about by Hyman Shulson, director of the Washington office of the American Zionist Emergency Council, who called on Joseph C, Satterthwaite, head of the State Department’s Middle East section, on March 15 when the fate of the Iraqi Jews was first reported. Other protests were made by the American branch of the Jewish Agency, the American Jewish Committee and B’nai B’rith.
Rep. Emanuel Celler today urged Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, U.K. Palestine mediator, to protest to Iraq, He said in a cable: “Support of Zionism is not inconsistent with one’s patriotism either in the United States or Iraq, Those charges are a monstrous violation of the laws of decency and humanity.”
(In Tel Aviv, Joseph Sprinzak, chairman of the Israeli Knesseth, announced that two requests for action on the position of the Jews in Iraq, “following the recent hanging there, “have been made. He said the requests are now under consideration by the government and it is hoped that a full statement will be issued next week.)
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.
