BERIA TO BE TRIED

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27226, 18 December 1953, Page 11

BERIA TO BE TRIED

Charge Of High Treason (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, December 17. A special sitting of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union will try Lavrenti Beria, the deposed Soviet police chief and former Minister of. the Interior, on charges of high treason and anti-Soviet activities, Moscow 7 Radio announced last night. The announcement said six accomplices would stand their trial with Beria and that all had admitted their guilt. It did not say when the trial would be held. The announcement followed a long detailed charge against Beria and his accomplices, in which Beria was accused of murder and betrayals to the British Intelligence over many years. It said: “Beria and a group of his conspirators murdered men who suspected his traitorous activities.”

Moscow Radio broadcast a statement from the State Prosecutor’s Office saying it had completed its investigations into the case of Beria—“a traitor to his country.” It said the investigation established that he ‘‘made use of his position to hatch a group of treacherous conspirators hostile to the Soviet Government.” The radio said Beria had “proposed to make use of the organs of the Ministry of the Interior for the purpose of furthering his treacherous ends.” The original announcement that Beria had been stripped of all his offices in the Communist Party and Soviet State was made in June. An official Moscow announcement at that date denounced him as “ah enemy of the people.” It also said that the case of Beria had been referred to the Supreme Court—the highest judicial body in Russia. The announcement was made in the form of a statement issued by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The decision was ratified at a full plenary session of the Supreme Soviet—the highest legislative body in Russia — held in August Beria, a former Minister of Internal Affairs and State Security, was in cnarge of the dreaded Russian secret

police from 1938 onwards. He was a close friend of Stalin’s. Both came from Georgia, the southern Soviet republic. When Mr Malenkov took over as Soviet Prime Minister on Stalin’s death in March, Beria became his deputy. Beria, in fact, formally proposed Mr.,Malenkov’s election as Prime Minister (chairman of the Council of Ministers) at the first session of the Supreme Soviet held after Stalin’s death. Surprise in Moscow The announcement of the trial of Beria came as a great surprise in Moscow today. The State Prosecutor’s indiqtment charges Beria and his associates with terrorism, murder, political treason, and campaigning against Russia’s, defensive capacity. Specifically Beria is charged with attempting to seize power after Stalin’s death —at a time when “reactionary imperialist forces activised their undermining activity against the Soviet State.”

The State Prosecutor’s statement referred to Beria having communicated with “a branch of the British Intelligence” in 1920. It alleged he “established contact with the Menshevik secret police in Georgia, which was a branch of the British Intelligence.” The investigation had established that in subsequent years Beria “maintained and extended his secret criminal contacts with foreign intelligence services.” The statement said Beria plotted to use Ministry of Internal Affairs organs “to grab power and liquidate the Soviet worker-peasant regime with a view to restoring capitalism and securing the revival of bourgeois domination.”