CABLE NEW.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 129, 1 June 1907, Page 5

CABLE NEW.

[nr _ ELECTRIO __ TELEGIt.im — COPmiGHT.] RUSSIAN HORRORS. RIGA TORTURES.

AN ATTEMPT TO MINIMISE. [press association.] ST. PETERSBURG, 31st May. M. Stcheglovitoff, Minister of Justice, speaking in the Duma yesterday, assured members that neither officials nor police had tortured political prisoners at Riga. 110 admitted that iho police might have lightly struck prisoners with their iists. Tha Ministers reminded the revolutionaries that they had killed or wounded a thousand police in the Baltic provinces. A report o? the Commission of the Duma, road on 23rd April, described the medieval tortures inflicted on political prisoners and suspects in order to extract confessions. It declared that tro Governor of Riga, with tho knowledge of tho administrative authorities, tho Public Prosecutor, and the Colonel of Gendarmerie, empowered a special committeo to kill accused persons without trial. A cablegram of 24th April stated : — "Some parts of ths description aro unprintable. Finger and too nails and hair have been torn out. One of tha prisoners was flailed with India rubber sticks until the flesh was hanging in strips. Salt was then rubbed in. Tho man died, and a plank was laid across his body, on which two policemen see-sawed until tho back'broko. After tha tortures tho maimed wretches were generally shot near Riga prison. The Government, in reply to an interpolation, admitted the truth of most of the statements, but said tho allegations against the Public Prosecutor's department wero exaggerated. Itwas added that M. Stolypin, the Premier, has ordered an enquiry and tho prosecution of tin guilty persons. Groftns, tho chief culprit connected with the Riga horrors, was promoted to a high post in tho political police of St. Petersburg