KRAVCHENKO’S CHARGES AGAINST THE SOVIETPARIS LIBEL CASE

Grey River Argus, 26 February 1949, Page 7

KRAVCHENKO’S CHARGES AGAINST THE SOVIETPARIS LIBEL CASE

PARIS, Feb. 23 To-day’s session of the lioel case of Kravchenko against a Paris Communist’ paper, opened with a shouting match between lawyers. It began when a former Russian engineer, Andrei Leded, told the court of arrests made during a purge in the Russian railways in 1931.

A defence lawyer, Maitre Nordmann, leaped to his feet, shouting: "The French also have got a secret policy, only they call it the Ministry of the Interior.''

Maitre George Izard, Kravchenko’s lawyer, then made a remark about the Russian policital police, and it was some time before order was restored.

Later, M. Izard repeated his accusations that the defence had be< trayed the name of the witness Antonov to the Soviet authorities. Antonov is one of the three men whom the Soviet Government asked the French Government to hand over lor trial as war cirminals. The defendant, Wurmser, leapt to his feet and shouted: “I will tell just what happened. I discussed the names of your witnesses with the Soviet witnesses.” M. Izard: Exactly. You are a police informer.

The next witness, Pascal Chiarelli, said that during the occupation he iiad been an interpreter at a Russian war prisoners’ camp at Aix-en-Pro-vence and, according to the stories he had heard, Kravchenko’s book was a fair picture of Russian life under the Soviet.