Espionage alleged

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32634, 16 June 1971, Page 17

Espionage alleged

(N.Z. I .A.-Reuter—Copyright) LEEDS, June 15. A former Royal Air Force sergeant was accused in a Leeds court yesterday of having given Czechoslovakia details of a secret radar device designed for the military jets that carry Britain’s H-bombs.

The accusation was made by the Attorney-General (Sir Peter Rawlinson) on the first day of the trial of Nicholas Prager, aged 42, who is accused of violating the Official Secrets Act Prager was bom in Vienna of Czechoslovak parents. The Court was told that in 1961, Prager gave the Czechoslovak intelligence service information about the Blue Diver, a radar-jamming device designed for the Vbomber force.

Sir Peter Rawlinson, who said that if the secrets of the aircraft were obtained by any Power, Britain’s nuclear deterrent became more vulnerable, alleged that Prager had spied for a principal partner in the Warsaw Pact,

The Attorney-General also alleged that the information Prager passed was of major military importance, and that its "delivery to the Soviet Union, through the Czechs, would cause serious injury to the defence of the United Kingdom.” It was while he was serving the R.A.F., Sir Peter Rawlinson said, that Prager photographed secret ddcuments relating to the Blue Diver, and in January of this year, during a visit to Prague, he made fresh arrangements ; for further spying. Prager, who has pleaded i not guilty to the charges, was ; arrested in March in Doncas- . ter, where he was working as an electrical engineer.