Cable briefs

Press, 27 July 1976, Page 8

Cable briefs

Spy freed East Germany has freed a former senior official who had been condemned to life imprisonment for espionage, the Association of Victims of Stalinism has announced in Berlin. Mr Hans Moehring, aged 59, was East Germany’s Minister of Heavy Industry before he was gaoled for spying in 1959. He had been expelled to West Germany, the Association said.—Berlin. Hosed off A Milanese petrol-station attendant armed with a squirting pump has won a duel with a bandit brandishing a pistol and demanding cash. The police reported that Mr Gioacchino de Astis, aged 56, the attendant of a station near Milan, hosed the bandit with petrol, forcing him to flee in his car.— Milan. Pohle in demand West Germany has asked Greece to extradite Rolf Pohle, a West Germany fugitive described by the West Germany police as linked to the extremist BaaderMeinhof gang and the international guerrilla known us Carlos. Pohle, aged 34, was arrested in Athens last week at the request of Interpol. He had been on the run since he was freed from prison in 1975 in exchange for the release of a kidnapped West Berlin politician, Mr PeUr Lorenz.—Bonn. Reporter missing Jon Swain, foreign correspondent of the London “Sunday Times” and Britain’s “journalist of the year 1 ’

in 1975, has been missing in Ethiopa for more than a month. The “Sunday Times” says Swain, aged 28, disappeared on an assignment to witness the progress of a peasant army mobilised by the Ethiopian Government against guerrillas in the northern province of Eritrea. The only clue to his whereabouts, the newspaper says, is a report by the police in the tiny norths i town of Axum that Swain checked out of a hotel there on June 15.—London. Late delivery A faded postcard with a halfpenny stamp has been delivered to an address in Brighton, England, 72 years after being posted from Reading, 50 miles away. A British Post Office spokesman said, “It must have got lost at the sorting office.”— London. Armchair sailors Three Englishmen have set sail for France to attempt the first armchair crossing of the English Channel. Their vessel was a three-piece lounge suit fixed to aircraft fuel tanks. The three men, Mike Pilkington, aged 40, Brian Peck, aged 38 and David Speed, aged 29, made their first Channel crossing four years ago—on a four-poster bed.—London. Jakarta accused Amnesty International has alleged that Indonesia has transported more than 1000 political prisoners to the penal island of Buru so far this year. The human rights organisation, which campaigns for the release of

political prisoners, said there were now more than 11,000 prisoners on the island.— London.

Huge ransom A young Grenoble woman has been kidnapped by a man claiming to represent a mysterious group which has already said it has abducted two more young people and wants a multi-million franc ransom. Miss Ulga Moissenko aged 21, was seized at gunpoint today in front of her fiance on a mountain road by a lone man early on Saturday, the police said. The gunman claimed to represent the hitherto-unheard-of “Group 666 of the Red Brigade.” A local newspaper later received a note from the socalled group asking for 750.000 francs ($55,000) ransom and the distribution by supermarkets of 40 million francs ($8.25m) worth of food to needy people. The same “group” has claimed it kidnapped last month two young people whose disappearance is still mystifying the police. —Grenoble. Passengers angry Angry passengers have disembarked from the firedamaged liner Queen Elizabeth 2, and complained of total confusion aboard the ship and of the Cunard Line’s offer of compensation. A huge airlift of 900 of the 1200 passengers stranded in the Atlantic when fire hit the 66,851-tonne British liner at dawn on Friday got under way at London’s Heathrow Airport after the QE2 had limped into Southampton. United States-bound travellers said some passengers were refusing to leave the damaged liner until they received better compensation from Cunard, the ship’s owner.—Southampton.