The Thoughts of Youth

Most of the million refugees from Palestine live out empty lives in ragged camps. But not the Salti and Stephan families. Though Greek Orthodox, they fled with their Moslem compatriots into Jordan during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, abandoning profitable businesses. There, Saba Salti slowly re-established his construction supply stores and was able to send his pretty daughter Nadia to college in Beirut. Theodore Stephan moved on from Jordan, became a prosperous insurance broker, and sent his son Stepho to the American University in Beirut.

Fellow honor students, Stepho and Nadia fell in love. When not taking Nadia to dances or to the movies, Stepho spent his spare time in such places as Faisal's Snack Bar on the Avenue Bliss, where hot-eyed students argued Pan-Arab politics. Stepho daydreamed of being a jet pilot in the service of Nasser and Arab nationalism.

Two months ago slim, brown-eyed Nadia, now 19, returned to Jordan where a good government job awaited her. Fiance Stepho Stephan, 22, followed, and their pleased families announced a fall wedding. But last week the pampered pair stood not at an altar but at the bar of justice, on trial for their lives.

The Hypnotized. They had been picked up by the Jordanian police, shortly after a bomb explosion in an Amman office building, with the evidence on them.

Four wrapped sticks of dynamite were found in Nadia's purse. Both confessed to terrorist activity against the regime of King Hussein, but only, said Nadia later, after "the police stripped me naked, beat me on the legs and thighs and threatened me with rape." Among three others accused with them was a young Moslem terrorist named Ibrahim, who came into court showing the welts of beatings, and able to speak only in whispers because of blows at his throat.

In court, young Stepho said that at the American University he had come under the influence of a wealthy young Arab nationalist who dominated him "almost to the point of hypnosis," and had ordered him to set off bombs in Jordan. His chief feeling of guilt, he said, was for having involved "innocent" Nadia in the bomb plots; she had not known what was in the package in her bag. Asked if she still loved Stepho, Nadia answered that "certainly, my love has faded a bit." Snapped the military prosecutor: "Only faded? Don't you now hate him?" Nadia glanced tenderly at Stepho, replied: "It seems you don't understand love, otherwise you would know that a love of eight years cannot disappear in a moment."

Show Trial. The Jordanians evidently intended the trial to be a showpiece, proving how firmly King Hussein's government acts against saboteurs. Public and press were invited to the officers' mess hall where it was held. But the trial also showed how ineptly the government ran courts-martial and condoned torture. Overnight, Radio Cairo began hailing Nadia as a new "Moslem Joan of Arc," ignoring the fact that she is actually a Christian. Cried the Cairo newspaper Al Shaab: "The coward King, feeling his weakness and impotence before his giant people, has chosen to fight women."

Radio Cairo warned the three judges that their names were known and that their fate would be sealed if they found the defendants guilty. And with its usual frantic disregard for the truth, the Cairo press reported that Hussein had ordered Nadia executed before trial, but had been warned that her death would cause a revolution. They had other yarns to add. The hangman had reportedly refused to execute Nadia, having been told by his wife that she would leave him, and so would their seven sons. And, said Cairo, when Nadia in her cell was asked what she wanted, she said simply: "The cross and Nasser's photograph." To this, her questioner supposedly replied: "If I give you Nasser's photograph, I will be thrown in jail myself." After such a fictional buildup, 19 executive councils of Egypt's one-party movement, the National Union, cabled the U.N.'s Dag Hammerskjold, asking him to intervene.

In the makeshift courtroom in Amman, the judges took two hours to reach their decision. For Stepho and Ibrahim, death by hanging; for Nadia, three years' imprisonment; for the other two, terms of ten and 15 years. All bravado gone, unshaven Stepho stammered: "I ask King Hussein to grant me mercy." Nadia paled and fingered the cross at her neck. In Beirut a prosperous uncle of Nadia's shrugged tiredly: "This is the last thing I would have expected of the girl." He sighed: "But often we, the older ones, do not know the thoughts of youth."

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