DR. LIEBKNECHT FREED

Evening Post, Volume xciv, Issue 73, 24 September 1917, Page 8

DR. LIEBKNECHT FREED

GERMAN SOCIALIST LEADER WAS V. VERY ILL IN. PRISON. >

;;;Dr. Karl liebknecht, Socialist leader in. the German Keichstag, who waa arrested in connection With the Mayday demonstrations in Berlin in 1916, was liberated in August by the German Government through fear that he might die in prison, says a despatch from Paris to New York. He is said to be suffering from tuberculosis. He weighs only 84 -pounds. ■ Ithe authenticity of the above seems certain, says the Paris Temps's Geneva correspondent, although the German newspapers in obedience to orders have kept silent regarding it. "The news," saye the correspondent, "was brought here by a Hollander, who had just arliyed from Germany. He says the trades, union organisations brought pressure on the Government for the release of Dr. Liebknecht, who is now in a private hospital and is not expected to recover, Buffering, ' in' addition to the lung malady, from mental depression, the result of inhuman treatment while in prison;" 'Dr. Liebknecht was tried by courtMartial in Berlin for "military treason" and sentenced to four years and one month in prison. A court-martial at Thorn'also is said to have sentenced Dr. Liebknecht to four arid a-half years at hard labour, charging that he had attempted to incite the soldiers of the Thorn garrieon to disobedience and rebellion. .