Leftist rebels win prisoners’ release

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33959, 27 September 1975, Page 15

Leftist rebels win prisoners’ release

(N.Z. Press Assn —Copyright)

LISBON. September 26.

About 50,000 rebelling Leftist soldiers and civilians have forced the authorities to release two pro - Communist soldiers from a besieged military prison across the Tagus River from Lisbon.

Military authorities made the decision after thousands of demonstrators had converged on the small town of Trafaria.

The crowd barricaded the ; streets of the town with •buses commandeered in Lis- ; bon to prevent commandos land marines from reaching the besieged prison. i A key factor in the decision to release the men was I said to be the sympathy of | the prison guards with the demonstrators.

The police say that after the prisoners were freed, the jubilant crowd began to climb back on the buses and return to Lisbon.

Although the military security chief (General Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho) was said to be the only one who had authority to release the I men, it was not known whether he had arrived to I authorise the move. ! The two men who were released had been arrested i for distributing propaganda I leaflets of the illegal “Soljdiers United will Overcome” I group, the same organisation that called the street rally in Lisbon that led to their release. The incident climaxed a night in which at least two people were killed by a bomb explosion and thousands of pro-Communist soldiers marched through the (streets of Lisbon, defying \ the fast-vanishing authority of the country’s military I rulers.

The soldiers were demanding the immediate removal of all Right-wing officers from the armed forces and the right to hold meetings at any time.

The bomb explosion destroyed a car in an area on the city’s outskirts dotted with radio and television antennae. Air force police said they found at least two bodies and another unex-

ploded bomb.