BRITON HELD IN BUDAPEST

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26039, 16 February 1950, Page 5

BRITON HELD IN BUDAPEST

ESPIONAGE TRIAL TO BEGIN TOMORROW

INTERVIEW REFUSED TO CONSUL

LONDON, February 14. A British Foreign Office spokesman said to-day that the Hungarian Government had refused to allow the British Consul in Budapest to see Edgar Sanders, whose trial for spying will open there on Friday. Hungary had also rejected Britain’s request to send counsel to prepare Sanders’s case, and visas for British and other foreign journalists to go to Budapest to cover the trial had been refused.

Sanders, who is the Budapest representative of the Standard Electric Company. was arrested last November with an American, Robert Vogeler, vicepresident of the International Telegraph Company of New York. Five Hungarians, including a woman, face trial with them:

The spokesman added that Britain’s Minister in Budapest (Mr G. Wallinger) had seen the Under-Secretary for Hungarian Foreign Affairs (Dr. Beri) at the week-end. According to an earlier understanding, there should have been no objection to the consul’s seeing Sanders, but Hungary had gone back on that understanding. Dr. Beri had said that the presence of a British lawyer would be an intolerable interference with justice. Mr Wallinger’s reply to this had been that Britain was interested only in seeing that justice was done.

The spokesman said that the only deduction that could be made from the refusal to allow a consular visit was that the Hungarians did not dare to grant access to the accused while he was being prepared for the familiar type of propaganda trial. Two tickets had been given to the British Legation so that legation officials could hear the trial.