Horace Samuel, London attorney who is defending Abraham Stavsky and Zvi Roseblatt now being tried for the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, in a remarkable speech which lasted all morning and took up part of the afternoon session, declared that he would prove to the court, that the assassination of Dr. Arlosoroff was not a political crime, that it is impossible to distinguish objects at night at the murder scene, that Mrs. Arlosoroff herself was at first convinced that an Arab was implicated in the murder of her husband, and that only Dr. and Mrs. Arlosoroff could have been aware of the route for their walk.
Samuel declared that the testimony to be offered by the witnesses for the defense falls into three catagories:
1. Proof of the alibis offered by Stavsky and Rosenblatt.
2. Refutation of police testimony.
3. Testimony concerning Mejid.
The defense attorney’s speech was delivered immediately after the conclusion of the direct testimony of the two defendants.
Samuel charged Mrs. Arlosoroff with having given incorrect testimony, pointing out that, according to the record, she herself was convinced during the first two hours after the killing that one of the murderers was either an Arab or dressed as an Oriental.
He asked the court to go to the seashore any night with weather conditions similar to the night of the murder, undertaking to prove conclusively that it was impossible to distinguish clothes there as clearly as Mrs. Arlosoroff declared she recognized Rosenblatt’s jacket.
He ridiculed the idea that the murder was a political crime, declaring that political murders were usually arranged in advance, whereas Dr. Arlosoroff returned from Europe only two days before the crime occurred, and the place where he chose to walk with his wife was not popular as a walk, and, in addition, the walk was secretly arranged between Dr. and Mrs. Arlosoroff.
After presenting further arguments to prove that the crime was not political in nature, Samuel advanced the theory that Abdul Mejid and Issa Darwish, Arab convicts, killed Dr. Arlosoroff.
He pointed out that, despite Mejid’s retraction, his confession was no mere accident, and that the phrase “Kama Hashaah” is never asked by a Jew, but is a customary Arab phrase.
The fifteen-year-old daughter of the Jerusalem hotel keeper Turgeman was the first witness for the defense. She completely substantiated Stavsky’s alibi that he booked a room from her on Friday, June 16, 1933, declaring that she recognized him immediately when shown his photograph by the police a few days after the murder. The murder occurred on June 16.
Nechama Avnieli, wife of the Revisionist leader, also corroborated Stavsky’s alibi, stating that he had visited her home on the day of the murder, asking for Achimeier.
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.
