FORTY ARRESTS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 81, 17 March 1933, Page 6

FORTY ARRESTS

CHARGES OF SABOTAGE VICKERS CO.’S EMPLOYEES. OGPU MAKING CLEAN SWEEP. London, March 16. Moscow has officially announced that nine more employees of Metropolitan Vickers have been arrested and charged with sabotage. All are Russians, of whom six are women. The arrested now total 40. The “News-Chronicle” is informed that their defence is being entrusted to a Russian advocate officially appointed, and that English counsel aru not being allowed to appear. “The Tinies” says that the Government’s representations to the Soviet cannot be too strong. It is intolerable that British subjects working in Russia executing contracts with the Soviet Government should be included among the victims of Ogpu’s hunt for scapegoats for miscalculations and mismanagement by The Soviet authorities. A PUBLIC TRIAL. AFTER INVESTIGATIONS FINISH. Moscow, March 15. The Foreign Offico informed the British Embassy that it was impossible to say whether the six employees of the Vickers Company will be tried until the investigations into the sabotage charges have concluded. The trial, if any, will be public. It is not stated if counsel will be allowed. MOSCOW PRESS COMMENT AN UNFAIR ATTITUDE London, March 16. The “Manchester Guardian’s” Moscow correspondent says that an editorial in the “Pravda,” headed “No Mercy for Our Enemies” assumes, before the trial that the charges against the Englishmen are ill-founded, though foreign correspondents are forbidden to comment upon the case, it being regarded as sub judice.