Cable Briefs

Press, 1 April 1980, Page 8

Cable Briefs

Suspects released t The British police have re- . leased six men they have j been questioning about the , theft of more than S 9 million J worth of silver bullion .{snatched from a lorry in Lonidon last week. The men included the driver of the .1 lorry, which-was stopped by ia fake policeman so that 10 J tonnes of silver, bound for (shipment to East Germany, (could be stolen. The police: I are hoping that a $700,000; (reward offered by insurers! (will produce an underworld! i tip leading to arrests and the I recovery' of the silver. —. London Vietnam mourns Vietnam will observe five days of mourning for President Ton Due Thang, who has died from heart and respiratory failure at the age of I 91. The Vietnamese said! yesterday' that a State funeral committee had been formed, and the party' and Government would also organise a “solemn memorial service”. It gave no dates for either event. Mr Thang, a veteran in the Vietnamese anti-colonialist movement, succeeded Ho Chi Minh as President in 1969, and the post became largely ceremonial. —- Hong Kong Banker guilty An Italian financier, Mich- . ele Sindona, has been found guilty of - virtually' all the j charges levelled against him in the largest bank fraud case in American history. A , jury Of six men and six women found the 59-year-old ; banker guilty of 65 counts -i of conspiracy, perjury, and f fraud. Sindona faces a max- < imum of five years'in prison i on e.ach count. Sindona was I accused of conspiring to« conceal the use of more than $4O million from two ' Italian banks he controlled ' to gain, control of New j York’s' Franklin National ‘ Bank in 1972. Sindona and c his aides misapplied about $45 million of Franklin ' National’s funds, causing it . to .go bankrupt. — New ( York.

Fire mystery

The fire which broke out in the engine-room of the illfated freighter Farid Fares was so intense that metal plates z began buckling after ten minutes, a spokesman for the shipping agents has said. Bob Fairchild, who is assisting in the resettling of the 71 survivors who arrived in Hobart yesterday on board the Polish research ship Denebola, which rescued them, said it was not, clear what started the fire, but it spread rapidly and the men abandoned ship about an hour after it broke out. The

ship, carrying a cargo of sheep from Devonport in Tasmania to the Middle East, caught fire'early last Friday in the Great Australian Bight. All but one of the crew were I rescued. — Hobart . 1