TRIAL BY JURY IN RUSSIA

Evening Star, Issue 16676, 7 March 1918, Page 4

TRIAL BY JURY IN RUSSIA

»■ A HUGH FARCE. PETROGRAD, Dcember 24—Countess Panin, who was Minister of Public Instruc. tion in the Kerensky Cabinet, was on trial to-day charged with, misappropriation of public funds. Hers was the first case tried by "the popular revolutionary tribunal." Tho countess was convicted, - and sentenced to imprisonment until the return of the money, ami to public censure. The small court room in the palace of Grand Duke Nicholas was filled' with, Mends and sympathisers of the countess. Judges—five working men and two soldiers—were all elected members of the Petroprad Workmen and Soldiers' Deputies. They sat at a long table, draped in red. To the left. near, the wall, the defendant sat, a soldier with a bayonet on either side. The president of the Bolshevik Court read the indictment. t " Who washes to speak to the prosecution?"' he asked. No one replied. The president then invited a statement for the defence. An elderly man, a former employee at the Ministry of Public Instruction, arose and spoke of tho great philanthropic and educational activity of the countess. He denied tho misuse of funds, and said that the countess had refirsed to acknowledge the right cf the present Government to demand the money. He declared that ehe should return the funds to the Constituent Assembly, which was the sole authority over her. Next, a young working man, speaking for the prosecution, made a clumsy and heated speech to the effect that nobility of character and educational activity need net cloud tho fact that the countess took public funds, and opposed the authority of the workmen's and soldiers' Government. He exhorted the Judges to disregard the personality and past of the defendant. In her "last word*' tho countess said; "As has been stated, I have not misused the funds. T consider myself responsible for their safety, and will'deliver them to the Constituent Assembly, to which alone I must account for my actions. Since the convening of the Constituent Assembly lias beon postponed, the money has beeii deposited in tho State Bank until it assembles." 'Hie so-called misappropriation of public funds consisted in the transfer bv the rmmtes's of all the ministry fund's to the State Bank, which loft the safes in the ministry empty when the Bolsheveki took control. She denied their right to the money.