DEATH SENTENCES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 64, 9 December 1930, Page 11

DEATH SENTENCES

Soviet Trial Closes

FATE OF PRISONERS Five to be Executed IMPRISONMENT FOR REST By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Rec. December 8, 9 p.m.) Moscow, December 7. At the close of the trial of the Russian professors and engineers charged with conspiring against the Soviet, Ranizin, Larichev, Charnovsky, Kalininkoff, and Fedotov were sentenced to death, and Kuprianov, Ochkin, and Sitnin to ten years penal servitude in addition to the deprivation of their property.

No appeal is permissible in any of the cases.

The greatest excitement marked the close of the trial, and the sentences were greeted with continuous applause. The excited court crowd apparently ex pected the prisoners to be shot the same night. Meetings were held in the chief Soviet centres during the week-end, and orators harangued the crowds, promising that the Government would teach the foreign Governments that it is futile to plot with internal enemies of the Soviet. THOUGHTS OF WAR Soviet Paves the Way TRIAL “STAGE-MANAGED” (Rec. December 8, 9 p.m.) London, December 7. “The Times,” in a leading article commenting on the Moscow trial, says it has been clear from the beginning that the trial was Intended to be not a judicial inquiry, but a great political demonstration in order to divert to foreign Governments the blame for the privations suffered by the Russian people. The whole proceedings have been elaborately stage-managed with a view to producing the greatest effect in Russia and abroad. The chief effect upon foreign opinion has been to strengthen the conviction that the oligarchy which employs such methods to maintain Itself must be desperately afraid of its power slipping from its grasp. It may well be that those who arranged the trial wanted to prepare public opinion for foreign war as a possible issue out of Its difficulties. The Soviet Press has been busier than usual for months past, inciting its readers against foreign Governments, and predicting their collapse.