DONETZ TRIAL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 21 May 1928, Page 5

DONETZ TRIAL.

ECONOMIC COUNTER-REVOLUTION SOVIET METHOD OF CONDUCTING PROCEEDINGS. (UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION—BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH—COPYRIGHT.) (AUSTRALIAN PRESS ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, May 18. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says: Beneath a blaze of cinema are-lights and loud-speakers gaping from the walls,-the trial has begun in the trade union hall of three Germans and fifty Russians who were charged with economic revolution at Donctz.

Professor Vishinsky presides over a bench of five, two of whom ore workmen and one a Donctz miner.

The evidence, which concerns the accused's relations with the French and Polish Governments, is being taken secretly. The prosecutor sarcastically repeated a request to summon a German witness, saying that if the employers came they would come as prisoners, not as witnesses. The penalty, if the accused are adjudged' guilty, is death. The Soviet press foreshadows harsh treatment. The “Isvesta” declares that Donetz was a prelude to an open armed attack on the Soviet.

Berlin newspapers have prepared their readers for a farcical trial, the result of which will ccrtinly be inimical to German-Russian relations.