Security Trials In Rhodesia

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32145, 14 November 1969, Page 9

Security Trials In Rhodesia

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) SALISBURY, November 12. Two Europeans—a New Zealandborn lawyer and a journalist—were committed for High Court trial in Rhodesia yesterday on charges under Rhodesia’s Official Secrets Act and Emergency Powers (counter-espionage) Regulations.

The two are John Roger Nicholson, 37-year-old financial editor of the Salisbury “Rhodesia Herald,” and Arthur Trevor Gallaher, a local lawyer. No evidence was given as the two men appeared separately in Salisbury Magistrate’s Court for a preliminary examination on the charges.

A list of charges was read at the brief hearings and the two were then immediately taken back into detention. Bail was refused on orders of the Attorney-General. Scottish-bom Nicholson, who also acts as correspondent in Rhodesia for “The Times,” was accused of one breach with two alternatives. Gallaher, a New Zealander by birth, faced seven charges with 10 alternatives.

No pleas were entered and the defence was reserved in both cases. The trials of the two men are expected to open next month. The names of the two men had previously been withheld under Rhodesian law. Nicholson, who was a member of the Southern Rhodesian Parliament from 1962 to 1965, was arrested by police while working in his Salisbury office two weeks ago. Gallaher had been held in a police camp at Goromonzi about 16 miles from Salisbury for about a month.