RUSSIAN OFFICER'S SUICIDE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 138, 12 June 1911, Page 2

RUSSIAN OFFICER'S SUICIDE.

OVERTURNS HIS AEROPLANE. TERRORISTS' PLOT AND ITS OUTCOME. ST. PETERSBURG, June 4. From a, height of 2000 ft Captain Mazanewitch, an army aviator, came crashing to the earth yesterday. The luckless fellow was killed instantly, his body being horribly mangled. Everyone, of thought it was an accident, but it now turns out to have ■been a most sensational suicide. Captain Mazanewitch had been selected by the Terrorists to bring about the death of a certain general. The plan was that the intended victim should be taken for a flight, during which he was to "accidentally" fall out of the aeroplane when the machine had reached a height of a few thousand feet. Captain Mazanewitch had no difficulty in inducing his superior to -undertake the flight, but before starting the latter made Mazanewitch pledge his word of honour that 'he wouliJand him safely. The captain kept his word, and the flight passed off without any "accident" to the general. The Terrorists, of course, were furidus with their man, and denounced him as a traitor, and threatening him with all sorts of penalties. Mazanewitch was finally warned that he would have to die but as he preferred to do so by his own hand he went up in his biplane, and when 2000 ft high deliberately overturned the machine. It was not until a letter which the captain hod written on the eve of the tragedy was found that the details of his sensational snicide became known.