PRAGUE TRIBUNAL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 12, 25 October 1949, Page 3

PRAGUE TRIBUNAL

TERRORISTS AND SPIES SENTENCED (Rec. 11.20 a.m.) PRAGUE, Oct. 24. The State Tribunal which since Saturday has been trying a “band of terrorists and spies” in the northwest Bohemian town of Louny, today sentenced four of them to dqgth' and four to life imprisonment. A number of other defendants received prison terms ranging from four to 25 years. . , The accused were alleged to have spread anti-State propaganda, conducted espionage and' attempted sabotage by bombs. They were said to have organised “illegal frontier crossings of a number of people of importance, and thei} gone over to espionage for a foreign intelligence service and to bombs and other armed assaults.”

Mr J. K. Penfield, American Charge d’Affaires, said to-day that the Czech Foreign Ministry had informed him that Samuel Meryn, who was arrested on Friday as one of the leaders of the alleged espionage ring said to be headed by American Embassy employees, would be tried soon as a spy. American officials said the charges were “entirely unfounded.” Mr Penfield said that American officials had not been able to get in touch with Meryn, who was apparently being held in a Prague prison.