Wynne Trial In Camera

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30127, 10 May 1963, Page 15

Wynne Trial In Camera

(N.Z.P.A -Reuter—Copyright)

MOSCOW, May 9. The Court trying the British businessman, Greville Wynne, on spying charges today went into closed session to hear details of secrets passed to the West by Wynne’s fellow accused, the Russian Oleg Penkovsky. Penkovsky yesterday told the Court he gave Wynne information about Soviet rockets the first time they met after Penkovsky arrived in Britain in 1961. Angry murmurs swept the Court when one expert witness accused Penkovsky of passing information about East European Communist countries to Western intelligence. Penkovsky said that photocopies he made could not have barbed relations with other Communist countries.

Wynne yesterday blamed British officials for “landing me here,” and said they had deceived and then threatened him. Wynne and Penkovsky have both pleaded guilty, but Wynne “with reservations.” Mrs Sheila Wynne was planning to “take it easy” today while the Court was in secret session. A friend at the flat where she is staying said: “She is planning to take it easy after the strain of the last two days. “We may go for a ride round the city or a walk in the park." The Court will resume in open session tomorrow. Wynne at one stage yesterday said he agreed with the prosecutor that he had been concerned in a “dirty busineis.” “If I had known from the beginning I would not have entered into it . he said.

Wynne's words became scarcely audible as the prosecutor asked what he thought now of his “criminal activities against the Soviet Union.” Wynne said he had not intended to “betray the hospitality which was shown to me by the Ministry of Foreign Trade.” Wynne described his meeting with the "boss” of the British agents. King and Ackroyd, in a Chelsea London flat The Court referred to this man as the “chief of British Intelligence.” Wynne said that at first he had been unwilling to maintain contact with Penkovsky but he changed his mind after assurances from King and Ackroyd’s chief, a very powerful figure, that this was nothing to do with espionage he said.