British Tourist Gaoled In Russia

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30738, 30 April 1965, Page 11

British Tourist Gaoled In Russia

(N.Z.P A.- Reuter—Copyright)

MOSCOW, April 29.

Soviet authorities have lodged a criminal charge against a Briton arrested in Moscow, a British Embassy spokesman said today.

The man, Mr Gerald Brooke, was visiting Moscow with his wife in a group of student teachers. The Embassy official said the Soviet Foreign Ministry had confirmed the arrest, but there had been no mention so far of the word “espionage". The Embassy was told of the arrest by Mr Brooke’s wife on Monday, and asked the Foreign Ministry for urgent confirmation. Mrs Brooke was not arrested.

The British spokesman said Mrs Brooke told the Embassy her husband was arrested in the apartment of a Soviet citizen after security police broke in.

A Foreign Office spokesman in London said the Embassy was trying to get permission for the Consul to see Mr Brooke.

The British Embassy said the couple, both in their midtwenties, lived in London. They came to Moscow as tourists on April 18 with a group of about 30 people, most of them student teachers of Russian. The group is due to leave for home tomorrow.

Mrs Brooke, a librarian. Is staying with the British Consul, Miss Agnes Wood. An Embassy spokesman said she was “very distressed" at her husband’s arrest.