EIGHT EXECUTED

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 74, 21 December 1937, Page 11

EIGHT EXECUTED

Leading Officials Of , Soviet ESPIONAGE ALLEGED Former Foreign Commissar Included By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. (Received December 20, 5.35 p.m.) Moscow, December 20. Eight leading Soviet officials have been tried and executed for high treason, terrorism and espionage. They are:— M. YENUKIDZE, former secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the U.S.S.R. .M. LEON KARAKHAN, former Commissar for ‘Foreign Affairs and Ambassador to Turkey. M. QUKERMAN, former chief of the Western Department at the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. M. STEIGER, unofficial head of the Soviet protocol. M. ORAKHELASHVILI, former chief of the Georgian Home Office secret police. M. SHEVALDIEV, head of the Communist Party in the Azov region. M. LARIN, Communist leader in the Rostov region. M. METELEV, who has not been identified.

M. Karakhan joined the Bolshevist Party in 1917. He was Ambassador to Poland in 1921 mid to China in 1925-26. From 1928 to 1934 he was Vice-Commis-sar of Foreign Affairs, becoming then Ambasador to Turkey. M. Orakhelashvili joined the Bolshevist Party in 1903. He was a member of the Council of People's Commissars, of the Central Committee of the Communist Party since 1926, and of the Centra] Executive Committee of the U.S.S.R. PRISONERS SET FREE Completion Of Railway Celebrated (Received December 20, 5.5 p.m.) Moscow, December 20. Ten thousand prisoners engaged in putting down a double track on the trans-Siberian railway from Karymskayar to Khabarovsk have been liberated to celebrate the completion of the work.