TRIAL OF COUSENS

Grey River Argus, 28 August 1946, Page 5

TRIAL OF COUSENS

HIS STATEMENT Meant to Give Allies Information INTELLIGENCE OFFICER’S EVIDENCE (Rec. 9.10). SYDNEY, Aug. 27. The hearing of the charges of treason against Major Charles Hughes Cousens entered the sixth day to-day. with a prospect that the Crown case will finish on Thursday. Evidence was given by Lieutenant-Colonel J. M. Prentice, who was G.S.O. 1 Intelligence at the Eastern Command since 1942. He identified the voice in the record played in the Court last Friday as that of Cousens, and stated that he had listened in to broadcasts by Cousens from Radio Tokio. He remembered one in which Cousen suggested that Australia should sever connections with the British Empire, sue for peace with Japan, and take a position as one of the component powers in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. A later broadcast he said, claimed that Churchill was a war-monger and that Roosevelt was a Jewish-financed and a Masonic-inspired leader. Witness said he could detect no attempt to convey information to the Allies. When cross-examined, the witness said he did not believe that Cousens had broadcast willingly. (Rec. 11.10). SYDNEY, August 27. The broadcasts which he made from Radio Tokio were designed to give information to the Allies, said Major Cousens, in a statement which he is alleged to have made in Yokohama, in October, 1945. This statement was tendered at the trial to-day by Captain George Simmie Guysi, of the United States Army, who said that it was made by Major Cousens in his presence. Major Cousens said that he had deliberately adopted a manner that would kill the broadcasts which he was forced to make; that he had looked foi' chances of sabotage; and he had combed the Allied short-wave broadcasts for questions which he might be able to answer, 'and that he selected for his “homesickness” sessions a woman announcer with a rough voice. Major Cousens had added that he had been beaten by Kempeitai men, and had been threatened that he would be handed over to them for torture.