Two Assassins

Outside, in Cairo's dingy streets in the Citadel quarter, policemen with fixed bayonets ringed the court. Inside, British sappers had searched the courtroom from top to bottom for mines. On the crowded courtroom benches the red tarbooshes bobbed up & down. The whispers of the perfumed mascaraed women rose to an excited buzz. Then the two handcuffed prisoners were ushered in--short, stocky, red-faced Eliahu Bet Tsouri, his arms defiantly akimbo; tall, pale, black-mustached Eliahu Hakim, his slender fingers tightly twisted round the iron-spiked bars of the dock.

Not since seven Egyptian students had killed British General Sir Lee Stack in Cairo 20 years ago had Egypt been shaken by a crime like the murder of Lord Moyne, British Resident Minister in the Middle East. This time the killers were two young Palestinian Jews, political assassins of the Implacable Stern Gang (TIME, Nov. 13). The two men kept their eyes fixed on the five black-robed, green-sashed judges.

The proceedings were in English and Arabic. The prisoners had refused to testify in any language but Hebrew. Because they distrusted the court interpreter, they later switched to English. Impatiently they admitted their acts. As Sternists and "sons of Palestine," they had come to Cairo for the express purpose of killing Moyne, they said. Tsouri and Hakim had leaped on the running board of Lord Moyne's car. Hakim had shot the Minister, Tsouri had stabbed his chauffeur to death. Then the prisoners began to expound the Stern credo of violence. They justified the assassination as an act of war against a foreign invader (Britain). Austere Mahmoud Mansour Bey, the presiding judge, tried vainly to halt the torrent of burning words. At last he ordered reporters not to record them. The prisoners, he ruled, could not use an Egyptian court as their political forum.

The trial dragged on for a week. In quick succession the judges received letters from: 1) Arabs protesting the freedom of speech permitted to the prisoners; 2) Jews protesting the censorship of evidence; 3) an unknown person threatening death to the court if the men were condemned.

On the seventh day Hakim and Tsouri were sentenced to die by hanging. Egyptian courts can sentence, but cannot directly order death. So the judges announced that the documents in the case would be sent to the Grand Mufti of Egypt, who has power to order death "in the Name of God." Four days later he issued the order.

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