OWNED IN AMERICA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26407, 11 March 1947, Page 5

OWNED IN AMERICA

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT SHIP RECOVERY TO BE SOUGHT Rec. 8.30 p.m. NEW YORK, Mar. 9. The motor ship Abril, which was intercepted by the British Navy while attempting to run the Palestine blockade with 600 Jews, is owned by the Type Shipping Company, of New York. Senator Guy Gillette, president of the American League for Free- Palestine, said to-day that, in response to the company’s request, the league would take all possible legal steps to recover the ship and protect the crew. The league had financed the ship for chartered operations by the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation, with headquarters at Basle, Switzerland. The vessel left New York on December 27 and was renamed “ Ben Hecht ’ in honour of Ben Hecht, the playwright, whose play, “A Flag was born,” helped to raise funds to finance it.

Hecht said to-day that he would start to-night on writing another play to “raise more funds to buy more ships to repatriate more Jews.”

A message from Jerusalem says that 20 members of the crew of the Abril will appear before the Magistrate’s Court at Haifa to-morrow on a charge of aiding and abetting illegal immigration. Eighteen of the charged men are Americans. The immigrants, with the excepton of thr.ee, were transferred to two ferry boats without incident.