Soviet Sentence ‘Harsh’

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30918, 26 November 1965, Page 11

Soviet Sentence ‘Harsh’

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) WASHINGTON, November 25. The State Department has condemned as extreme and harsh an 18-month sentence given by a Russian Court to an American book salesman for crossing the Soviet border without a visa. The department said the stiff penalty, imposed at Murmansk, was of “grave con-

cern to the Government of the United States and could hamper the further development of contacts between the Soviet and American people.” Newcomb Mott, aged 27, a textbook salesman from Sheffield, Massachusetts, crossed the Russian border from northern Norway on September 4 to visit the town of Boris Gled. The State Department said the sentence of “corrective labour” was "inconsistent with past Soviet practice in cases of this kind.”

The department’s spokesman, Mr R. J. McCloskey, said the United States “will

’ continue its effort on Mott’s I behalf in the hope that he - will be able to return to the • United States as soon as pos- ’ sible.” i Mr McCloskey said foreign- . ers previously arrested by I the Russians for crossing the i border at the same point • without visas to visit the ■ “tourist town” on Soviet soil had been let off after : being held in gaol for periods . “lasting from a few days to, . at most, four weeks.” > Only last summer, Russia had permitted Norwegian and

Icelandic tourists to visit Boris Gled “freely, without visas,” Mr McCloskey said.