SCANDAL AT SHANGHAI

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 May 1927, Page 3

SCANDAL AT SHANGHAI

CHARGE AGAINST AMERICANS. The American community at Shanghai, in addition to the troubles due to the Chinese civil war and to the consequent business depression, is involved in a serious scandal pertaining to opium smuggling into China from Persia, says the Manchester Guardian. Complete details are not yet available, but Leonard Husar, the American District Attorney attached to the United States Court here,, is under arrest charged with accepting a bribe of 25,000 dollars for supressing evidence connected with the operations of an international opium ring. Husar has been released on bail for £3OOO, while the case is in preparation.

According to information supplied by the American Consul, Mr.: Clarence Gauss, the opium case had its origin in Bushire, Persia, when an American was arrested at Bushire and fined for being concerned in smuggling opium into China.

At the Bushire trial evidence was produced showing the complicity of a number of prominent American residents at Shanghai. The American Consul at Bushire sent the evidence to the American Consul, Mr. Edwin Cunningham, then serving at Shanghai, and Mr. Cunningham handed it to the District Attorney, Husar, with instructions to institute prosecutions. Husar delayed the action for several months, and finally asserted that the evidence pertaining to the opium ring was lost. Recently Husar’s wife brought a suit for divorce in the San Francisco court, and asserted that Husar had purposely lost the evidence following the receipt of a large bribe from the opium ring. The State Department immediately appointed a new District Attorney, Mr George Sellett, a graduate of Michigan University, and a man of high reputation, for the purpose of prosecuting Husar and cleaning up the opium scandal. Mr. Sellett was appointed on December 1 last, but according to recent reports from Washington Husar’s political friends in the Senate prevented the ratification of the appointment at the last session of Congress. Hence the United States is now technically without a District Attorney, although Mr. Sellett is still acting. American officials jn China, including the Shanghai Consul, Mr. Gauss, and the Pekin Minister, Mr. John Macmurray, and Judge Milton Purdy, of the United States Court at Shanghai, are supporting Mr. Sellett in a clean-ing-up drive, but it is reported that there is serious political pressure exerted by the opium ring to prevent Mr. Sellett carrying on the work for which he was specially appointed. The American Consul at Shanghai, Mr. Gauss, is determined to press the case, and declares that it is his intention to purge the American community at Shanghai of opium smuggling. He expresses the opinion that unless the State Department upholds Mr. Sellett’s appointment the Government’s case ■ falls to the ground.