ORDEAL BY WATER

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 September 1928, Page 8

ORDEAL BY WATER

SOVIET TORTURES FILM AGENT.

Like a cry from a medieval dungeon is the story told in “Vorwaerts” (Berlin) by an Austrian photographic expert of the tortures inflicted on him in Russia with the object of extorting from him a confession of espionage on behalf of the British Government. The writer went to Russia under a contract concluded in the London ateliers of the Meyer Goldwyn Film Company with an agent of the Bolshevik “Sovkino.” He was on the point of leaving Tiflis for Berlin to purchase certain photographic materials when be was arrested. He may be allowedto continue the story in his own language:

When I was taken to the Chekoi Building they placed before me for signature a complete written protocol according to which I voluntarily confessed that I was a spy, and ■with this object had come to Russia from England. Naturally I refused to sign, whereupon I was taken into a cellar and there placed in a cask, inside which I could neither stand nor sit. Over my head there closed a sliding i lid which, however, must have been porous, for, by means of an ingeniously contrived tap, water fell on my head in drops at regular intervals. How long I retained consciousness tinder this terrible torture I do not know, but I came to myself in a small, thick-walled cell to which I had been carried. Over me stood the juvenile examining Judge, and urged me to make a comprehensive confession which, he assured me, would lighten my lot. Indeed,/ he promised me complete impunity. • When he saw this, too, was of no avail, he declared furiously that he would soon get me under.

For some days I was left in peace, but one night I was suddenly dragged out of my cell, clad only in my shirt, hurried into the courtyard, and placed against a wall with two rifle barrels aimed at my chest and oiie at my head. Close by stood the examining Judge, grinning sardonically and rubbing his hands with glee. ’ I did not stand long against the wall for I soon collapsed. • •■•1 Eventually the writer was sentenced to ten years’ banishment not as a British spy, but as a “counter-revolution-ary.” While, he was awaiting dispatch to his place of exile' the exertions of the Austrian Government secured his release.

Even after what we know about Bolshevik methods from unimpeachable witnesses, his story places a rather severe strain on one’s credulity, but it is to be presumed that the chief German Socialist organ would not print it without satisfying itself by drastic tests that the writer is deserving of belief.