Cable Briefs

Press, 15 June 1979, Page 5

Cable Briefs

Mengele denial A Paraguayan official has denied that the notorious Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele, is living in Paraguay, the newspaper “ABC-Colour” has reported. It quoted the Interior Under-Secretary, Miguel Angel Bestard, whose Ministry is in charge of the police, as saying that a claim by the Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal, that Mengele lived in Paraguay was totally false. Wiesenthal has said in Vienna, his headquarters, that he has asked the United Nations Secre-tary-General (Dr Kurt Waldheim), to help in securing Mengele’s extradition from Paraguay to stand trial for the deaths of 200,000 Jews at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War IL—Asuncion (Paraguay). Novel murder

A 59-year-old automobile worker with a passion for Agatha Christie thrillers has gone on trial accused of murdering his uncle with a bottle of poisoned wine. Roland Roussel is accused of injecting a large dose of the drug atropine into a bottle of Cotes du Rhone wine which he offered to his uncle and aunt, both over 80. The uncle died the same night but the aunt survived. The police became suspicious when a nephew of the dead man and a carpenter making the coffin fell ill after drinking from the half empty bottle, the prosecution said. A search of Roussel’s flat revealed severa? Agatha Christie novels, one of which contained a passage describing a similar murder underlined in red ink, the court was told.—Coutances (France). Refugee deaths

Nearly 250 bodies of illegal Chinese immigrants trying to sneak into Hong Kong have been washed up by the sea so far this year, the police have said. This was already 60 more than the total for the whole of 1978. Border patrols have been sharply stepped up this year, but still an estimated 1000 illegal immigrants manage to evade capture and disappear into central Hong Kong every day. On Monday, a teenage girl was found strangled on the barbed-wire border fence where she had apparently become entangled. — Hong Kong. Bill watered down A controversial South African Government bill to curb press reporting on State corruption and maladministration has been watered down by an allparty Parliamentary committee. The bill, published last month, stirred’ protest within both normally proGovemment Afrikaans newspapers and the Opposition English-language press. It aimed to legislate against publication of allegations of State corruption and maladministration without the permission of an advocate-gen-eral, a Government official to be appointed under the bill. The amendments allow newspapers freely to publish reports on the misapplication and maladministration of State funds unless there is any suspicion of dishonesty, in which case they must obtain reporting permission from the Attor-ney-General before publishing.—Cape Town.