MAJOR FARRAN FREED

Chronicle (Levin), 3 October 1947, Page 5

MAJOR FARRAN FREED

(N.Z.P.A.-

— Reuter.

fflurder Charge Fails In Absence of Body

Cojauriaht)

Received Friday, 9.15 a.m. JERUSALEM, Oct. 2. The military court found Majar Roy Alexander Farran, formerly assistant superintendent of the Palestine Police,' had no case to answer on the charge of murdering Alexander Rubowitz, a Jew, aged 16, on the night of May 6. Major Farran was- freed. The court, in acquitting Major Farran, .upheld the defence submission that there was no case to answer "without the body or trace of the body — a submission to which the prosecution had earlier agrqed. Major Farran's counsel had told the court .that for 200 years- in Britain no accused had ever been convicted of murder oi manslaughter in the absence' of the body. Army officers connected with the preparation of the prosecution's case said after the trial that even if Major Farran's immediate senior, Colonel Bernard Fergusson, had agreed to disclose a conversation he had with Major Farran on May 7 after the disappearance of .-Rubowitz, there would still have "been nothing to save the circumstantial and hearsay evidence ,against Major Farran. Colonel Fergusson, on the first ciay of the trial, refused to give evidence about this conversation, , because he said that in doing so it might lead- him into a danger of belng prosecuted. The military and legal authorities guaranteed that Colonel Fergusson was not due to be prosecuted as an accessory, but the colonel continued to refuse to give this evidence.