A Brother's Treason

When the Iraqi army killed King Feisal and seized power last July, General Karim Kassem threw his arms around his top lieutenant, Colonel Abdul Salem Mohammed Aref, and called him "my brother in revolt." Others, presumably including Aref himself, decided that the hot-eyed Aref might one day play Nasser to Kassem's Naguib. Last week a prosecutor at one of Baghdad's show trials revealed, almost in passing, that Aref has already been tried and convicted of treason.

Aref, a thrusting young Arab nationalist, fell because he tried to force Iraq into a quick union with Nasser's United Arab Republic. An Iraqi nationalist before all, Premier Kassem had tried to divest his friend by exiling him to the ambassadorship to West Germany. When Aref returned without permission at an awkward time, the Premier ordered his arrest. Kassem had decided personally, said the prosecutor, not to divulge "details" of Aref's trial, "in the interests of Arab solidarity." Nor was any sentence made public, though for treason there is usually only one punishment, and that quite final.

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