A KIDNAPPING CONSPIRACY

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3714, 12 October 1926, Page 7

A KIDNAPPING CONSPIRACY

ANARCHIST’S CONFESSION The Spanish Anarchists, Ascaso and Duratti, who were arrested on the eve of Hie arrival in Paris of King Alfonso and Queen Fna, and confessed that they had intended to make an attempt upon the monarch’s life, have now undergone their first interrogation by the examining magistrate, states the Paris correspondent of the ‘ Daily Telegraph.’ !u the course of this both denied that there was any truth in their original statement, but Duratti declared that he had come to France with the intention of fomenting a revolution in Spain, and had determined to kidnap the King during his visit to Paris. According to his new version of his intentions, lie had planned to hold up the Royal train at ’lran with the help oi a hand of Anarchist friends, and to kidnap the King and hide him. The plan was that a report should bo spread that the King was dead, though the Anarchist affirms that he and his friends had no intention of doing any bodily harm to the monarch beyond depriving him of freedom until the report of his death was widely accepted. The reason for this plan, he explained, was that, at present, there are many officers in the Spanish army who, though they are in sympathy with the Anarchist’s ideas for overthrowing the Dictatorship, find themselves hound by their oath of loyalty to the King. Duratti states that none of his friends knew any of the details of the plot, and were only to he informed of it when the time came for action.

Asoaso so declared that lie was unaware of any attempt to be made upon the King, and explains his possession of forbidden arms by saying that be intended to smuggle them oyer the Spanish frontier. Both admit that they came into France under false passports, and lived on money furnished to them by the Spanish Anarchists in Argentina and in France.