FORTY ARRESTS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 147, 17 March 1933, Page 11

FORTY ARRESTS

Vickers Co.’s Employees CHARGES OF SABOTAGE Ogpu Making a Clean Sweep (By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (Received March 16, 8.15 p.m.) London, March 16. Moscow has officially announced that nine more employees of the Metropolitan Vickers Electrical Company have been arrested and charged with sabotage. All are Russians, of whom six are women. The arrests now total <O. , . The Soviet Foreign Office informed the British Embassy at Moscow that it was impossible to say whether the six Vickers representatives first arrested would be tried until the investigation of the sabotage charges had been concluded. The trial, if any, would be in public. The “News Chronicle” is informed that the defence of the arrested persons is being entrusted to a Russian advocate officially appointed English counsel *ot being allowed to

appear. The Rigg correspondent of “The Times” reports that arrests of engineers continue, the Ogpu intending a clean sweep as part of the new policy of political economy. “The Times” says: “The Government’s representations to the Soviet cannot be too strong. It is intolerable that British subjects working in Russia and executing contracts with the Soviet Government should be included among the victims of Ogpu’s hunt for scapegoats for the miscalculations and mismanagement by Soviet authorities.” V

OFFICIAL PROTEST Unjustified Charge , Official Wireless. Rugby, March 15. The British Government’s grave view of the Moscow arrests was expressed by the Leader of the House, Mr. Stanley Baldwin, who, in the absence of the Foreign Secretary, replied to a question in the House of Commons. “The information from the British Ambassador at Moscow,” he said, “confirms the Press reports.that the following British subjects: Messrs. Monkhouse, Thornton, Cushy, MacDonald, Gregory, and Nordwall, employed by the Metropolitan Vickers Company, together with more than twenty Soviet citizens employed by the same firm, have been arrested by the Soviet political police on a charge of sabotage of electrical machinery.

“Messrs. Monkhouse and Nordwall have since been provisionally released on the undertaking not to leave Moscow. The other persons arrested are still in custody, and the Ambassador has visited them in prison. Their health appears generally satisfactory, and permission to exercise has been promised. ’'lmmediately on receipt of the news of the arrests the Ambassador made urgent representations to the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, requiring to know, among other points, exactly on what charge the arrests had been made, and what facilities for their defence would be granted them. As he has received no categorical or satisfactory answer on these matters, he has been instructed to press for the fullest possible information from the Commissar for Foreign Affairs, M. Litvinoff.

“Moreover, as his Majesty’s Government is convinced that there can be no justification for the Charge on which arrests were made, the Ambassador, Sir Esmond Ovey, has been instructed to represent .in strong terms the grave view which the British Government takes, of these proceedings against Britisli subjects of high standing, engaged in normal comercial pursuits to the benefit of both countries, and the unfortunate consequences to AngloSoviet relations which may follow unless they are recFified. “Similar language will be used to the Soviet Ambassador in London tomorrow as his Excellency has been unable to come to the Foreign Office today.”

MARTIAL LAW Powers of Summary Justice (“Times'’ Cable.) London, March 15. “The Times” Riga correspondent says that the Government has proclaimed an emergency law in all Soviet republics curtailing the functions of the Law Courts and endowing the Ogpu with powers of summary justice, including the death penalty, alleging that widespread disloyalty and sabotage necessitate this. There is 'no appeal from this martial law, to which the arrested engineers are subject. The Soviet’s authorisation that the Ogpu should, unrestrictedly conduct trials and Impose death sentences has increased the anxiety in British official quarters. The Ambassador, Sir Esmond Ovey, could ask the prisoners only whether their health and the food were satisfactory and exercise sufficient. ' '