Iraq Hangs Two Jews; American Groups Protest Execution

The hanging this morning in Baghdad of two Iraqi Jews–Shalom Saleh Shalom and Yusuf Ibrahim Basri–charged with terrorism, was reported here today in a cable from Baghdad. A report confirming the news that the execution had been carried out was also received by the State Department in Washington.

The American Jewish Committee issued a statement denouncing as “outright murder” the execution of the two Jewish youths. “Exclusively Iraq sources make it clear,” the Committee asserted, “that these men never would have been convicted in a country practicing modern, civilized justice. Information appearing in Iraqi newspapers showed conclusively that these two men were tried under conditions of a hanging court. Their fate was sealed before the trial began. The entire trial was a mockery.

“There are several other Jews already convicted, and still other yet on trial, whose fate may also be decided without regard for civilized legal processes. Unless world opinion, which Iraq has flouted in hanging these two men after an unfair trial, makes itself heard at once, there may be repetitions of these gross injustices in Iraq,” the Committee warned.

Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of the American Jewish Congress, said: “The hanging of the two young Jews in Baghdad is a crude perversion of justice which can only increase tension throughout the Middle East at a time when attempts are being made to bridge the gulf between Jews and Arabs. The trial itself, based on alleged confessions, wrung by the crudest methods of medieval torture, was a travesty even by Iraqi standards and clearly represented an attempt by the Iraqi Government to intimidate and terrorize the Jews of that country.”

Dr. Goldstein urged governments to exercise whatever possible influence to prevent a repetition in trials now being prepared by Iraq against 40 other Jews.