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Review: Major Farran’s Hat

A murder that helped snuff out Mandate Palestine

February 12, 2009 11:05
David Cesarani: commendable

By

Geoffrey Alderman,

Geoffrey Alderman

2 min read

By David Cesarani
William Heinemann, £20

On May 6 1947, Alexander Rubowitz, a teenage member of “Lehi” — “Fighters for the Freedom of Israel”, — was abducted in Jerusalem by a “special squad” of the Palestine Police, led by Roy Farran, who later interrogated and murdered him.

To this day, Rubowitz’s remains have never been found. Farran — on secondment from the British Army — was, after much delay (occasioned partly by his escape to Syria), brought before a court martial. But his confession, made while he was in detention, was ruled inadmissible; witnesses to the abduction failed to identify him; and the presence, at the abduction site, of a felt hat bearing his name was deemed a wholly insufficient piece of circumstantial evidence. And so he was acquitted.

Roy Farran was no ordinary policeman, or soldier. He was one of the most decorated British servicemen of the Second World War, recipient of the DSO and three Military Crosses, hero of numerous tank battles and SAS escapades of extraordinary bravery. The Times, in its obituary of him (2006) described him as “a soldier of exceptional courage, daring and imagination”. So he was.