ESPIONAGE TRIALS IN FRANKFURT

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25734, 21 February 1949, Page 7

ESPIONAGE TRIALS IN FRANKFURT

U.S. ARMY WITHDRAWS SECRECY ORDER (Rec. 7 p.m.) BERLIN, February 18. “United States Army intelligence officers have withdrawn their decision to hold espionage trials of 19 persons in secret,” says the Frankfurt correspondent of the Associated Press. “The military commission which is conducting the five trials of 20 people on charges of spying on the United States forces in Europe announced on February 15 that two- trials would be held in secret and that the names of the defendants, the specific charges, and the verdicts would not be given for security reasons. The American Military Governor (General Lucius Clay) ordered an investigation into the necessity for this, and the first trial it was announced that Frontisek Klecka had been sentenced to 20 years’ hard labour and that the commission had’ been ordered to reveal the names of the defendants and to announce the verdicts when the trials finished. “An official statement issued by the United States authorities to-day says: ‘Further consideration of the remaining cases has voided the necessity of further closed trials at this time.’ ”