LIFE SENTENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23883, 10 August 1939, Page 2

LIFE SENTENCE

GIRL WITH BOMB YOUNG ARAB'S SUSPICIONS " WOULD HAVE KILLED SCORES " On a charge of carrying a bomb, which "would have kilted scores of people if it had exploded," Rachel Bahshush, a young Yemenite Jewess, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Military Court at Jerusalem, states the News of the World. The death penalty was not inflicted tjecause there was uncertainty as to her age. One doctor gave it as 17 and another as 19. ' The court finally decided that she was under 18, and, therefore, could not be sentenced to death. The girl, who had afiotted the name "Ohevami" ("Lover of the People"), pleaded not guilty to the charge, and refused to make a statement. Throughout the trial the courtroom was heavily guarded. Only British police and journalists were admitted. Weight of Basket The chief witness was the Arab boy, aged 11, whose suspicions were aroused by the weight of a basket the girl had asked him to carry to the central prison gate, and by the fact that while the girl was dressed like a Moslem, and sDoke Arabic, the bread which she carried in the basket was unlike Arab loaves. Other witnesses were an Arab constable on guard at the prison gate, and two British constables who searched the basket and found the bomb The bomb was made up of 111 b of iron fragments, 12 sticks of gelignite, and two detonators attached to a cheap pocket watch.' and an electric battery Rachel listened to the evidence without a trace of emotion, and when Major Catherall, president of the court, asked if she had anything to say before sentence, she replied. " I have nothing to say" After sentence she shook hands with her weeping parents and her lawyer, a British barrister Then she was escorted into a Black Maria with four armed British constables and a prison wardress, and was taken to Bethlehem Women's Prison