MORE CZECH “SPY” ARRESTS— Purge Continues Behind The Iron Curtain

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 November 1949, Page 5

MORE CZECH “SPY” ARRESTS— Purge Continues Behind The Iron Curtain

PRAGUE, November 8 (Rec. 11 a.m.).— Thirty-two persons, including a former Slovak Democrat member of Parliament, Karel Folta, have been arrested on charges of espionage. /

Ari official statement announcing the arrests said that Folta acted as an agent for a former member of the British intelligence service. Folta had returned to Prague from Germany to carry out espionage after training agents- recruited from refugee camps. The official statement also alleged that Folta had been in contact in Germany with Dr Michael Zibrin, another former member of Parliament,'who, it was stated, had been in - touch with both the British and American intelligence. It was officially announced in Prague in April last that Dr Zibrin had escaped arrest by swimming a frontier river and reaching Germany. A Berlin message says that four Russian officers have been arrested for participation in a resistance movement in the Russian Army, according to the British-licensed Berlin Telegraf. The paper says the officers were arrested recently for distributing anti-Soviet pamphlets among Russian armoured units at Dessau and Rosslau, in the Russian zone. The families of the arrested men were sent back to Russia five days ago. ' -

A later Prague message says that Samuel Meryn, United States Embassy employee, who was arrested on an espionage charge on October 21, was released from prison today and handed over to American officials with an order that he leave Czechoslovakia within three days. An official statement, announcing Meryn’s release, said that he had asked pardon of President Klement Gottwald. It added that Meryn had been convicted “by irrefutable proofs” of having been in contact with a number of Czech spies. CZECH LEADER MAY NOT RETURN HOME

LONDON, November 8 (Rec. 1.10 p.m.).—Mrs Vladmir Clementis, wife of the Czechoslovak Foreign Minister, arrived in London tonight by air from Prague on her way to join her husband in New York. He has been leading the Czech delegation to the United Nations Assembly. It is rumoured in London and New York that Mr Clementis has been ordered home from the United States following the arrest of some of his staff in the recent purge.