Hearing in the case of the three men held for the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff was given a striking new turn today when Horace Samuel, attorney for the defense, for the first time in the history of the case, suggested in court that there was considerable possibility that an Arab was the killer of the labor leader.
Samuel declared that he had learned from the public prosecutor in Jerusalem concerning the arrest of two Arabs in connection with the murder. One of the two, Abdul Majid Albendi, Samuel declared, confessed twice in writing, over his own signature, that he was one of the murderers of Dr. Arlosoroff, having held the searchlight which was flashed in Arlosoroff’s face when he was accosted by the two persons who killed him. The second Arab who according to Alhendi’s testimony was the one who fired the shot, was declared by Mr. Samuel to be named Issad Arwish Alkurdi.
WOULD EXAMINE FILE
Samuel demanded that the police permit him to examine the file and that both Arabs be detained as material witnesses in the present investigation. He also demanded that the weapon found, the bullets from which are said to resemble the bullet found in Arlosoroff’s body, be produced.
Colonel Harry P. Rice, deputy commissioner of police, present in the courtroom, declared that he was unable to comply with the demands made by Mr. Samuel, since the investigation was still secret. Magistrate Bodilly, before whom the investigation is being conducted, declared that he was unable to compel the police to comply with the requests of the defense attorney and suggested that the defense subpoena the police officers in charge of the files.
RICE TAKES STAND
Later Colonel Rice, who was placed on the witness stand, declared that Abdul Majid’s testimony was full of contradictions and perhaps false. The second Arab, Issad Arwish, who allegedly fired the shot which killed Arlosoroff, was arrested in July, released some time later, and then arrested once more after Abdul Majid made his confession, the Colonel declared.
Originally Abdula Majid was arrested in connection with a blood feud murder in which he killed another Arab.
In jail, he told fellow prisoners that he killed Dr. Arlosoroff. Later he confessed to the police that he and Issad Arwish met Dr. Arlosoroff and his wife on the beach and that he wanted to “rape the Jewess but the Jew interfered, so I shot him.”
Defense counsel Samuel said in the courtroom that he believed that Co- lonel Rice had told him that the but lets from Abdul Majid’s revolvt were of the same type as that founj in the body of Dr. Arlosoroff.
However, Magistrate Bodilly con” tinued with the ordinary routine examination of witnesses in the hearing, paying no attention to the revelations.
Joshua Glicksman of Kfar Saba where Zvi Rosenblatt, one of the three defendants, alleges he spent the night of the murder, testified that he saw Rosenblatt in Kfar Saba- that night between 9:30 and 11 P.M.
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.
