ARRESTS IN GREECE Widow of U.K. penicillin discoverer included

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32702, 3 September 1971, Page 15

ARRESTS IN GREECE Widow of U.K. penicillin discoverer included

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) * ATHENS, September 2. Military police in Athens were still questioning the widow of the discoverer of penicillin, Sir Alexander Fleming, today, after arresting her for plotting the escape of a man who tried to kill the Prime Minister (Mr George Papadopoulos).

Three others two men and a woman—were seized with Greek-born Lady Fleming, aged 55, as they waited in two cars for Alexandras Panagoulis to jump over the wall of his central Athens prison early on Tuesday, a Government spokesman said last night. Panagoulis, a soldier, was sentenced to death in 1968 after he admitted setting off a time bomb on a coastal road

seconds after a car carrying ing Mr Papadopoulos passed.

His execution was postponed after world-wide outcry and protests to the Greek Government.

Lady Fleming, a doctor who holds dual British and Greek nationality and was Sii Alexander Fleming’s second wife, now faces trial with her three companions before a military court at a date still to be fixed. If found guilty they could get from six months to five years, said Mr Byron Stamatopoulos, Under-Secretary to the Prime Minister. Mr Stamatopoulos told a

specially-convened press conference last night that the plan was for Lady Fleming and the other three to drive Panagoulis from the prison and spirit him out of Greece. If the escape had been successful it would have been the second time that Panagoulis, aged 32, has managed to get out of gaol. In June, 1969, he was free for four days after escaping from a prison near Athens. Since his recapture he has been in a cell at the Greek military police training centre in Central Athens.

Mr Stamatopoulous said that Lady Fleming and her companions were being interrogated by military authorities and, .under the law, could not be seen by a lawyer until the questioning was completed. They were all in good health.

He named Lady Fleming’s three companions as a 40-year-old Greek-American divorcee, Mrs Athina Psichoyou, a 28-year-old American student, John Skelton, and a 28-year-old Greek student friend of Panagoulis’s, Constantine Androutsopoulos. According to United Press International, Mr Stamatopoulos said that as Panagoulis would not be leaving the camp, the authorities “used a- trick and sent two other people who resembled

Panagoulis and the friendly warden out of the door. “The two then jumped over the fence, and the three persons waiting in the car tooted the car horn on schedule, and were then arrested.” Mr Stamatopoulos said that Lady Fleming, who was waiting at another spot, "apparently thought something was wrong, as usually happens to her exploits, or she was bored, so she returned to the original rendevous spot and was arrested.” Mr Stamatopoulos said that Panagoulis was frequently moved from site to site because the authorities were on the alert for escape attempts.