Woman begins sentence for aiding Arabs

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EDITOR’S NOTE — This sto- (EDITOR’S NOTE: This tory has been censored by the Israeli military censor.) TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Terry Fleener, a 23-year-old American convicted of supplying information about the Jewish state to Arab guerrillas, began a five-year prison term Monday.

Miss Fleener, of San Antonio, Texas, confessed during a one-day trial last Tuesday to charges of conveying information to the enemy, conspiring to convey information to the enemy and rendering service to unlawful groups, her attorney reported. Other charges were dropped after she entered the guilty plea.

“It’s better than the death sentence,” Miss Fleener said after the closed-door trial. Her Israeli lawyer, Felicia Langer, called the five-year sentence, handed down Monday, “cruel and unbased.” She said she will appeal. “This is not a heavy sentence, compared to the maximum of 15-20 years,” said prosecuting attorney Sarah Sirotta.

“These are offenses which strike at the security of the state. In other countries she would be hanged.” Details of the proceedings were withheld, the customary procedure here in cases dealing with security. Miss Fleener was arrested Oct. 25 on arrival at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport. In December, U.S.

Embassy officials said Miss Fleener, who is not Jewish, was suspected of intending to photograph military installations in Israel. The indictment alleged she was to gather information in Israel and pass it to a member of an Arab guerrilla organization in Lebanon. Her mother, Mrs. Mary Boettcher of Enon, Ohio, and Dr.

Catherine Edwards, her former professor at the University of Texas in San Antonio, were present at the sentencing and testified as character witnesses during the trial. “She is idealistic, somewhat naive, impetuous, and fiercely loyal to her friends and principles,” said Dr. Edwards, trying to shed light on Miss Fleener’s motives.

“She was interested in the Middle East, and very well read. “She confessed in court ... but the sentence does not reflect what she actually did. She didn’t hurt anyone,” Dr. Edwards told The Associated Press. Mrs. Boettcher burst into tears after the sentence was read — first in Hebrew, then in English. She said her daughter stood stoically during the sentencing.

How this transcription was made

Masthead not readable on the scan. The label on the slide read: [masthead not on clipping] — No masthead, folio or date on the cut. Internal evidence only: the one-day trial was “last Tuesday,” sentence “handed down Monday,” she “began a five-year prison term Monday,” and she was arrested “Oct. 25” with U.S. Embassy comment “In December.” That is consistent with a Tuesday 10 January 1978 printing of a Monday sentencing, which matches Maria’s label, but nothing on the page confirms it. The local advertisement in the cut gives a telephone number, 926-3136, with no area code and no town name, so it does not identify the paper either. — Complete article as clipped; the cut also carries two unrelated display advertisements (Beneficial Income Tax Service and Cochran Upholstery Cleaning), which are excluded. Printed as set and not repaired: the editor’s note appears TWICE at the head of the story, once in large serif type broken off mid-word (“EDITOR’S NOTE — This sto-”) and immediately below it again, complete, in bold sans in parentheses, where the word “story” is set as “tory”; the lawyer’s word is printed “unbased” (not “unbiased”); the ellipsis in Dr. Edwards’s quotation is set with spaced periods and may mark the censor’s cut rather than the speaker’s pause — the page does not say. I have not supplied the closing quotation mark missing after “very well read.”

Cite this clipping

"Woman begins sentence for aiding Arabs," (newspaper unidentified), 10 January 1978. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1978-024. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1978-024