Shafiq Ades foi enforcado, por um crime que não cometeu, há 76 anos...

Shafiq Ades (Arabic: شفيق عدس, Hebrew: שפיק עדס; born in 1900, died on 23 September 1948) was a wealthy Iraqi-Jewish businessman of Syrian origins. After a short show trial in 1948, he was executed by hanging on charges of selling weapons to Israel and supporting the Iraqi Communist Party.

 

Early life and career

Ades was born to a wealthy family based in Aleppo, Syria. He migrated to Iraq and based himself in Basra.

His main business activity was the establishment and management of the Ford car company agency in Iraq. He further partnered with a Muslim named Naji Al-Khedhairi in purchasing military metal scrap left in Iraq by the British army, selling the unusable parts after usable parts were sold to the government of Iraq. Involved with the Ford concession in the country, Ades accumulated business and personal ties with high-profile Iraqi notables and officials and even had accessibility to the regent,'Abd al-Ilah. The richest Jew in Iraq, Martin Gilbert writes that Ades “had lunched with Government ministers and dined with the Regent.” The Ford importer was by 1948 the wealthiest Jew in Iraq. He was described by historians as a “political pragmatist” with “no time for ideologues of any stripe, least of all Zionists.

 

Trial and conviction

In July 1948, Iraq made Zionist affiliation a criminal offense. When arrested, Ades was “accused simultaneously of being a Zionist and a Communist. For the main charge against him, that he had sold arms to Israel, the military court presented no evidence. He was also refused the right to a proper defense.

In a military tribunal, accused of sending cars to Israel, Ades was charged with donating money to the Iraqi Communist Party and with supporting the military efforts of Israel. He was sentenced to death and ordered to pay a fine of 5 million Dinars. The rest of his property was confiscated. Scholars Moshe Gat and Philip Mendes reached the conclusion that Ades was clearly innocent. They cite the following evidence:

• No such complaints were ever filed against his Muslim partner or many other scrap traders.
• The trial lasted only 3 days and the defendant was not allowed to plead his case.
• No witnesses were ever called.
• The show trial was presided over by Judge Abdullah al-Naasni, a member of the anti-Jewish, pro-Nazi Istiqlal Party.
• No concrete evidence was presented that the arms were shipped from Italy to Israel.

His execution was set to take place several days after he was found guilty. Although hundreds of Jewish individuals were detained that summer, Ades was the only one who received a death sentence. The only Jew in his organization, he was also the only member of his business to be punished for the crime the business was convicted of.

 

Execution

Following the show trial, Ades was hanged in front of his newly completed mansion in Basra on September 23, 1948. 12,000 onlookers came from all parts of Iraq to witness the hanging of the so-called "traitor." Authorities left his dead body in the square for hours and it was abused by the celebrating crowds. Mona Yahya, who had family living in Iraq at the time, later wrote about the hanging that “crowds gathered to watch the spectacle and their cheers incited the hangman to a repeat performance. The next day, close-up shots of the hanged man covered the front pages of the Iraqi newspapers. His neck was broken, his corpse dangled over his puddle of excrement. He was labelled the Serpent, the Traitor, the Spy, the Zionist, the Jew, while his estate worth millions was appropriated by the Ministry of Defense."

 

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