U.S. ATOMIC SPIES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26970, 20 February 1953, Page 6

U.S. ATOMIC SPIES

STAY OF EXECUTION FOR ROSENBERGS (N Z. Press Association —Copyright) NEW YORK, February 17. The condemned atom spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, today won a stay of execution until at least March 30 ‘and possibly longer. . The stay will be, in effect, to permit the Supreme Court of the United States to review the case a tjurd time. The execution of the couple, Julius, aged 34, and his wife, aged 36, had been set for the week of March 9. A three-member United States Appeals Court granted a stay on the motion of the defence lawyer, Mr Emanuel Bloch, to give the condemned couple time to petition the Supreme Court for a review of the case. Judge Hand told Mr Bloch: We will give you a stay until March 30 and if your petition is filed then, then whatever the Supreme Court decides to do is up to that Court, and the stay will not expire Until they have aC Judge Hand added that he would be unwilling to ‘‘foreclose full opportunity for a review of the case by the Supreme Court.” Mr Eisenhower denied an application for clemency by the Rosenbergs last Wednesday. Mr Bloch said today that he would make another appeal to the President if the Supreme Court, which twice has refused to review the case, turned down the thifd petition. Mr Bloch based his appeal today on what he called a ‘‘series of. substantial questions of law.” He charged that the prosecution had “deliberately timed” the indictment of William Perl, a university atomic on charges of perjury to coincide with and prejudice the Rosenberg trial. Perl is awaiting trial on a perjury charge which alleges that he lied when he said he did not know the Rosenbergs. .