Three More Trials In Hungary Reported

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28620, 24 June 1958, Page 18

Three More Trials In Hungary Reported

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

NEW YORK, June 22. More Hungarian executions and secret trials of leaders in the abortive 1956 revolt were reported today. The report came from Dr. Bela Fabian, chairman of the Federation of Hungarian Former Political Prisoners, who said that his organisation had received word of the new developments in Hungary. Dr. Fabian said that Joseph Kovacs, Sandor Racz and Sandor Karsia, all top leaders in the revolt, had been executed after secret trials. Now in progress, Dr. Fabian said, were three more secret trials. In one, he said, were teachers and students of the Kossuth Military Academy. In another were several doctors who treated wounded freedom fighters and who refused to reveal their patients’ names. The third trial involved 47 lawyers. Dr. Fabian said the lawyers were accused of calling a special meeting of the Budapest Bar Association, the first since the outbreak of the revolt, deposing Communist leaders and electing a new executive board. The prosecution was demanding the death sentence for the former chairman of the Bar Association and three of its members, Dr. Fabian said. Mr Ferenc Nagy, a former Hungarian Prime Minister, told a television interview’d* today that three more trials werfe being prepared for Hungarian revolutionary leaders. “Only a Tool” He said the pesent Hungarian regime had little part, if any, in the execution of Mr Imre Nagy. “The Hungarian Government was only a tool in Moscow’s hands.” he said. Nevertheless he urged the expulsion by the United Nations of the Hungarian delegation. He also said the Soviet Union should be given t\yo or three, months to comply with resolutions approved by the General Assembly. Then, if she had not complied, Russia should lose her United Nations membership. Meanwhile, the United Press International reported from Berlin that an East German Communist radio station said today that the Hungarian revolution leaders, Imre Nagy and General Pal Maleter were executed by firing squads. It was the first statement by the Communists on how they had mel death, U.P.I. said. Most Western authorities believed that Nagy and Maleter, the military hero, had been executed with two other leaders of the 1956 rebellion by slow strangula-

tion—the traditional method oi execution in Hungary. As near as could be determined the freedom fighters were tried at the grim Foe-Utca prison in Budapest and executed within two hours, probably early last Tuesday morning. Then the Budapest regime issued the announcement of the execution. The Communist radio coupled the statement on the executions with an attack on “Fascist provacateurs” who stoned the Soviet Embassy in Bonn, West Germany, on Friday in protest against the executions. The West German Government has apologised for the incident and offered to pay damages. A New York message says that about 350 screaming Hungarian refugees trampled several policemen today while smashing windows of the Park Avenue headquarters of the Soviet delegation to the United Nations. Six were arrested after four policemen, including a deputy chief inspector, had been injured. Three demonstrators were arrested yesterday after a less violent outbreak at the Soviet building.