"GUILTY."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 87, 13 April 1933, Page 7

"GUILTY."

ENGINEER'S PLEA. BRITISHERS ON TRIAL. Sabotage Charges Against Vickers Employees. SENSATIONAL EVIDENCE. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright.') (Received 12.30 p.m.) MOSCOW, April 12. Mr. W. H. Mac Donald, one of the British engineers, pleaded guilty to-day when the trial commenced of the employees of the British engineering firm Metropolitan Vickers on various charges of sabotage and spying.

Two Red soldiers with fixed bayonets guarded the dock and a dozen soldiers stood on the platform. Nine lawyers sat together* The public rose as the judges —ordinary army men dressed in mufti —entered the Court.

The other accused each entered a plea of not guilty.

Entering the Court without greeting his comrades, Mac Donald, bearded, hollow-eyed and haggard, stood up in the dock and pleaded guilty in the Russian phrase, "I recognise."

The Russian prisoner Gusev, head of the electrical station, secured the entire attention of the Court when he said: "I started counter-revolutionary work when I met the Metropolitan Vickers employees. Mac Donald suggested that I should supply information regarding the plant that was very valuable in a military sense." Information for His Own Interest. Answering the Prosecutor, Vishinsky, Mac Donald admitted that he and Gusev were friends in 1930, and added that he sought information from his own interest.

Gusev, answering Vishinsky's staccato queries, confessed to wrecking machinery and obtaining secret information. He declared that Mac Donald co-operated with him in placing metal in the machinery at Zlatoust. "Yes-, that's true," answered MacDonald in reply to Vishinsky. Gusev, proceeding, said that he had only 750 roubles a month and MacDonald gave him more. Mac Donald gave evidence of gifts amounting to 3500 roubles, but declared his ignorance of the sabotage order ito slow down the machinery at Zlatoust. Gusev added that Mac Donald recommended Thornton as a source of information. Mac Donald admitted writing to Gusev about the firm's business. The proceedings became intensely dramatic alter the dinner adjournment. Gusev, after giving evidence for four hours, and trembling with emotion and nervousness, admitted all the accusations against him, and said that MacDonald lived on a, higher scale of life than the other engineers. He added: "If my life is spared I will reform and become a good Soviet ( citizen." Thornton, in the course of his evidence, admitted meeting Gusev and Mac Donald in a station buffet in the Urals, but said he was not aware that there was any espionage. His interest in gathering information was purely commercial. He gave Mac Donald 2000 roubles for the information he gave. Asked why he had admitted his cognisance of espionage on March 15 according to his depositions, Thornton replied that he was nervous, though the "third degree" had not been employed. The Court adjourned until to-morrow. All the prisoners left together. They were not fatigued, except Mac Donald, whose statements caused mingled jubilation and apprehension in interested circlcs. Expansive Indictments. A sample of the cfiarges is that Gusev, head of the electricity station at Zlatoust, alleges that Mac Donald gave him money to use in collecting information dealing with military production at Zlatoust. The indictment quotes MacDonald's deposition- as admitting that he did so under' instructions from Thornton, one of the accused, including more vaguely, to "organise breakdowns," MacDonald being under the impression that Thornton was acting in the interests of Britain. Gusev gives details of wrecking acts performed by Mac Donald, who, it is alleged, had instructions for the purpose of lowering the production of shells of high quality steel. The indictment credits Thornton with admitting that he instructed Mac Donald, but denies receiving military or sccret information. The charge against Monkliouse reads that between 1927 and 1932, when working in Russia as chief representative of Metropolitan Vickers, he belonged to a counter-revolutionary group and collected, through subordinate British and Russian engineers and technicians, secret information of the military state which was of importance, also that he participated in the counter-revolutionary group's wrecking and diversional activities, systematically paid money for espionage, and systematically bribed and abetted a Russian engineer to conccal the defects of equipment erected by Vickers. The charges against the vary in detail, but are similar in principle. An expert commission appointed to study the documents reported that the breakdowns of plants were due to criminal neglect or deliberate wrecking.