DETENTION FOR 8 YEARS

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30129, 13 May 1963, Page 15

DETENTION FOR 8 YEARS

Russian Sentence On Briton

(N Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) MOSCOW, May 11. A British businessman, Greville Wynne, aged 44, was today sentenced to eight years detention for spying against Russia—and told his wife, Mrs Sheila Wynne, afterwards it would be “like being back in the army.” The two met—for the first time since last December—in a small downstairs building of the Supreme Court. Earlier today Wynne’s co-defendant, a Russian scientific worker, Oleg Penkovsky, was sentenced to death for espionage. Mrs Wynne said after their 30-minute meeting: “He jokes about these things, you know. He is very light-hearted.”

She said he had given her a list of things to send to him, including rug-making materials and the “Financial Times.” Mrs Wynne said her husband told her he had made rugs when he was in a military hospital and “I think I will do that again.” Asked about his attitude to the sentence, she said: “We didn’t discuss it too much. We discussed personal things.” Western newspapermen saw Wynne clasp his wife in a warm embrace, kissing her firmly as they met. Wynne’s Russian lawyer. Mr Nikolai Borovik, said he hoped there would be an opportunity for another longer meeting between Wynne and Mrs Wynne. If the Supreme Court sentence is carried out, Wynne, aged 44. will serve a further

two years and a half in gaol and the last five years of the sentence in a labour camp, with “a severe regime.” But Wynne—the first Briton to face spy charges in the Soviet Union since the early 1930's—has the right to appeal for a shortening of the period of detention. Mr Borovik said Wynne wanted to make such an appeal to the highest Soviet court—the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet—“and I will do it for him.” Penkovsky, also 44, has the right to appeal for a reprieve to President Leonid Brezhnev, whose technical position is president of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The prosecutor had asked the three-man military court, presided over by General Borisoglebsky, to sentence Penkovsky to death (by shooting) and Wynne to 10 years. The Russian orowd pack-

ing the Court room applauded for 30 seconds when the sentences were pronounced. But when Wynne’s sentence was read out, there were murmurs from some spectators of “too little, too little.” The Court added a rider to its judgment, naming as guilty a group of staff members at the British and United States Embassies. It said they had used their official positions to aid Penkovsky and Wynne in their espionage activities. The Court said this was contrary to the rules of international law and the status of diplomatic staff and should be brought to the notice of the Soviet Foreign Minister (Mr Andrei Gromyko) so that appropriate measures could be taken. Mrs Wynne, aged 42, said tonight she would appeal for executive clemency for her husband, British United Press reported. Mrs Wynne, said Mr Borovik. would make the appeal to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Mrs Wynne, speaking to correspondents soon after seeing her husband, said: “He w s remarkably cheerful. He seems reasonably fit, but he has lost quite a lot of weight.” She said her husband was “very concerned about us” — a reference to herself and their 11-year-old son, Andrew “My husband jokes a lot . . . When I asked him where, he would be a prisoner he said he didn’t know and then he added 'it won’t exactly be a holiday camp. . . . ' ” When reporters asked her if they had discussed the sentence at their meeting after the trial, Mrs Wynne said: “He was not exactly happy about it.” Earlier, spectators clapped and cheered when the prosecutor demanded the sentence. Mr Borovik, in a rousing final plea to the Court, said: “Confession has softened the crime.” He pleaded for “a much lighter sentence—a humane sentence.” Mr Borovik spoke of the Court’s difficulty in understanding “the psychology of a different social system.” He said Wynne had “lived through much on account of Lis acts and crimes” but genuinely repented and wanted to help the Court. When during this visit Penkovsky asked him to take a package to England “naturally he went to the British Embassy.” Mr Borovik said. “He talked to Embassy officials who told him not to take the parcel. That was quite right, and if he had gone on like that he would not now be in fhe dock.” Mr Borovik said that April 12, 1961, when the first Soviet spaceman was launched, was for Wynne “the blackest day of his life.” Wynne had no interest in politics and supported no political party. “Wynne cannot be regarded as a conscious enemy of the Soviet Union,” he said. “Wynne is not a professional intelligence man. He has had no lessons at a spy school. “He has had no special preparation. He did not receive one penny from them. He is a non-political businessman. The Anglo-American intelligence men used him.”