The remains of Alexander Aronson were buried last Friday at the cemetery of the Amsterdam Ashkenazic community near Muidberg. The Dutch Jew was executed in Iraq last December as an alleged spy for Israel. Iraqi authorities had refused to release his body, notwithstanding an appeal from his mother who visited Baghdad for that purpose last month. But after an unexpected change of mind, the remains were flown to Holland last week.
Neither the Dutch Foreign Ministry nor KLM airways was prepared to explain how the transfer came about. It was not announced here until after the funeral which was attended only by relatives and close friends of Aronson’s family. The burial was preceded by a brief service at the home of Aronson’s father attended by two officials representing The Netherlands government. It was learned that an autopsy performed at the family’s request determined that Aronson died by hanging between 4-7 months ago.
Aronson, a male nurse who travelled widely ministering to the sick and injured in undeveloped countries, was arrested by Iraqi soldiers near a Kurdish village last March 24. He was tried by a military tribunal and sentenced to death as an Israeli agent although he had not been in Israel since the early 1950s.
Iraqi authorities denied an Iraqi news agency report in December that Aronson had been executed. But they refused requests by the Dutch government to allow a representative to visit the prisoner. Last March 15, the Iraqi Embassy at The Hague informed Aronson’s mother by telephone that her son had been executed.
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.
