CZECHS ARRESTED ON CHARGE OF SPYING FOR U.S.

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22852, 24 January 1949, Page 5

CZECHS ARRESTED ON CHARGE OF SPYING FOR U.S.

(9 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 23. It is officially announced that 70 persons have been arrested in Czechoslovakia on charges of operating an espionage network in the American interests, says Reuter's correspondent in Prague. The official statement said that the Austrian branch of the group was headed by the Slovak refugee, Josef Vicen. The authorities claim to have secured letters written to Slovaks by Vicen in which he said he had two contacts with the American occupation authorities and other contacts with the American intelligence service. The statement said that the police had found microfilm, a radio transmitter and documentary evidence showing that the group used couriers between Slovakia and Austria where they sold military, economic and political information to the United States intelligence services. An earlier message said that between 200 and 400 officers, including several generals, of the Czechoslovak armed forces had been imprisoned in connection with a military coup planned for the Christmas holidays. General Karel Kutlvashr. commander of Prague's liberation forces in 1945, was believed to be among those gaoled. Reuter's correspondent in Berlin says that Dr. Bedrich Bruegel, acting head of the Czechoslovak military mission in Berlin, denied reports that Czechoslovak Army offcers had been arrested. He said: “I have just returned from Prague and I can.say emphatically that these reports are untrue. No arrests have been made. Everything is quiet in Prague.”