AUSTRALIAN SPY INQUIRY

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27443, 1 September 1954, Page 11

AUSTRALIAN SPY INQUIRY

Mrs Petrov Confirms Earlier Evidence

(Rec. 10 p.m.) SYDNEY, August 31. Mrs.Edvokia Petrov today told the Espionage Royal Commission that she did not want to alter any evidence she had given at earlier sittings of the commission. She was cross-examined by Dr. H. V. Evatt, Leader of the Opposition, who is appearing for two members of his staff. She told him she did not know his former press secretary, Fergan O’Sullivan, at the time when a photograph showing both of them was taken. at the Soviet Embassy in Canberra. She said she was not sure her husband was alive until she*spoke to him by telephone from Darwin on April 20. “I was. then convinced he had gone over to the Australian authorities of his own free will,” shq said. “Up to then I always thought he had been kidnapped.” Mrs Petrov said she would not have remained in Australia if she had known her husband was dead. At one time she had thought, .before deciding to seek asylum in Australia, that her husband was dead. He had been almost mad, could not speak without crying, and would tremble and raise his voice against her. That was in 1953, when both he and she were accused by the former Ambassador, Mr Litfanov, of belonging to Beria’s group. Mr Litfanov had said she and her husband were at the head of the Beria group, but this was “all lies.” Reference to Document J When Dr. Evatt said that her husband’s evidence as to the sources for document J was different from hers, Mrs Petrov said that would be because she had more to do with the document and remembered it better. She said the original of document J had been sent to M.V.D. headquarters in Moscow.

She denied that she had marked document J in any way. “When we got any kind of document, we had no right to put any marks on it,” she said. ■ She added that all her hopes for her future life in Australia were centred on her husband. “He will work,” she said.