MOSCOW TRIAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XX, Issue 295, 2 December 1930, Page 3

MOSCOW TRIAL

CONFESSIONS OF ACCUSED. PERPLEXING SITUATION. (United Press Association— By CableCopyright.l London, Nov. 30. Since the Moscow trial began everybody has been speculating as to why the accused so fulsomely confessed. They seem almost to glory in their guilt. Why are the proceedings so prolonged, since in Western countries a plea of guilty leaves only formalities ? The first correspondent to touch on this aspect is the "Observer’s" Moscow representative, who, commenting on the conspicuous lack of any defendant’s attempt to prove his innocence, says: “One sometimes is amazed at the composure with which they incriminate themselves for capital offences for which the whole articulate nation is clamourin'' for their execution.” The correspondent proceeds: “It is a matter of conjecture whether this attitude originates in fatalism, relief after the strain of investigation, repentance after guilt or hope that a full confession will bring a reprieve. Despite the confession. Krilenko relentlessly nroceeds with his cross-examination.” M. Marcel, the French Communist deputy who is present at the trial, in a message to the Paris paper “Humnn'te.” of which he is editor, savs: “The whole story seems to resolve itself into little more than saving that Russians and other refugees in Paris were occasionally received hv certain French officers and Ministers. nnd flattered themselves into believing they had seemed French promises of sunport for arm-d intervention against the Soviet.'”