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CAIRO, April 10 (AFP) - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has pledged to try to free 13 Iranian Jews facing trial this week on charges of spying for Israel and acting against Iranian security, a European Jewish leader said Monday. "Mr. Arafat expressed his concern about the 13 defendants, and allowed us to say publicly that he has pledged to intervene on their behalf," said Henri Hajdenberg, head of the European Jewish Congress (CJE). Hajdenberg said Arafat, whom he met in Gaza on Sunday, did not specify how he could help. The 13 Iranian Jews, including three who are free on bail, were arrested in the southern city of Shiraz one year ago. Eight Muslims accused of the same crimes are to be tried separately. Hajdenberg, who is also head of the Council Representing Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), meanwhile met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Foreign Minister Amr Mussa here. Hajdenberg said earlier he would propose to the Egyptian authorities that European Jewish intellectuals visit Cairo in September "to open a dialogue at the level of civil society and remove obstacles." He said he wanted to "build bridges" between Arabs and Jews by organizing such a visit to Egypt. “Teachers, intellectuals, lawyers, journalists are far behind the peace process," Hajdenberg said. "Myths continue to be spread," he said, referring to what he claimed to be "anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic" articles in newspapers in Egypt, which became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, but whose people refuse to make peace. The CJE, which claims it represents 2.5 million Jews, oversees 38 Jewish communities, covering the whole of the European Union and Eastern Europe. Hajdenberg met Mubarak in March 1999 as part of a "peace mission" to the Middle East.
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