Hearst may face second bank robbery charge

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33958, 26 September 1975, Page 9

Hearst may face second bank robbery charge

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright)

SAN FRANCISCO, September 25.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is now investigating an alleged link between the arrested newspaper heiress, Patricia Hearst, and a bank robbery earlier this year in which a woman customer died.

A report on Columbia Broadcasting System television last night said that Hearst had now been linked to a bank robbery in Sacra-

mento on April 21 of this year through a composite drawing prepared by witnesses and marked banknotes found in the San Francisco flat where she was arrested. The F. 8.1. has refused to confirm the report, but an agent, Mr Frank Perrone said: “There is an investigation.” A team of court-appointed psychiatrists is expected to confer today on suitable tests to decide if Hearst is mentally fit to stand trial on a San Francisco bank robbery charge. Kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in Februanr of last year, and arrested by the F. 8.1. on

Thursday of last week, Hearst is accused of joining the S.L.A. in robbing the bank on April 15, 1974, and faces a possible 25 years in prison.

The psychiatrists are: Dr Seymour Pollack, a prosecution psychiatrist in the trial of Sirhan Sirhan on charges of assassinating Senator Robert Kennedy; Dr Donald Lunde, a Stanford University professor and author of the book, “Murder and Madness,” and Dr L. J. West, of the University of California.

A psychologist, Dr Margaret Singer, has been appointed to help to do the tests in San Mateo County Gaol, south of San Francisco where Hearst is being held. Her lawyers have submitted an affidavit in her name maintaining that she took part in the robbery only because she had been terrorised and brainwashed by the S.L.A., and that a gun was trained on her throughout the raid. The panel does not include Dr Chalmers Johnson, a University of California expert on brainwashing who was appointed tentatively on Tuesday by Judge Carter at the suggestion of Hearst’s mother. Dr Johnson told Reuter yesterday he was inclined to believe that Hearst was an active urban guerrilla, and not a victim of brainwashing. Of the defence submission, Dr Johnson said: “It sounds to me much more like a clever defence than a description of reality.” Hearst’s alleged S.L.A. colleagues, William and Emily Harris, who were also arrested last week, are due to be sent overnight from San Francisco to Los Angeles .to face charges arising from the armed robbery of a sports goods store in May, 1974. Hearst is also charged with taking part in that raid, but will not face trial in Los Angeles until her San Francisco trial has ended. North Sea oil

Britain will be making a profit from its North Sea oil and' gas within two years despite huge development costs now straining its balance of payments, oil experts said. They forecast that although the country will have to import large amounts of plant and equipment for the North Sea fields for at least another three years, savings from the use of the oil, which has just begun to flow ashore, will rapidly increase. These savings, put at £9O milnarcotics were sold in West this year, would turn the current account on North Sea oil into surplus by 1977. — London.