Dutchmen Admit Spy Charges

Press, Volume C, Issue 29637, 6 October 1961, Page 6

Dutchmen Admit Spy Charges

(N.Z.P.A -Reuter—CoptjrisM) KIEV, October 5. Two Dutchmen admitted at their trial for spying yesterday that they had come to the Soviet Union to photograph rocket bases and military’ establishments.

Both seamen, they admitted having worked for the Dutch Intelligence Service for several years. They had been briefed for the Russian assignment by an ■ American in a cafe in Amsterdam, they claimed. The men, Evet Reidon. aged 30, a ship's engineer, and Lou de Jager, aged 25, a navigator, were arrested in August on the Soviet-Czechoslovakia border after making a month's car tour of Russia.

They face a possible death sentence with alternatives of from seven to 15 years’ imprisonment. For five hours yesterday the men revealed the secrets of their hiring and past activities, then the Court went into secret session.

Reidon, who said he had been a spy for five years, said he had photographed

Soviet warships through the porthole of his own ship in Archangel and Ventspils and the Polish port of Danzig.

De Jager, who said he had been spying for two years, said he had photographed ships in Shanghai harbour. Reidon said his total pay for five years’ espionage had been about £l2O. He was paid about £5lO for expenses on the Soviet trip. De Jager said that while the two men were spending 10 days resting in the Crimea he tried in vain to make some extra trips.