HARD LABOUR IMPOSED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 284, 28 October 1933, Page 8

HARD LABOUR IMPOSED.

PENALTY ON RUSSIAN. WELLINGTON, Oct. 28. On a charge of being in possession on September 17 of three moulds intended for making 2s pieces, a Russian, George Sargiff, aged 42, was adjudged guilty by a jury in the Supreme Court yesterday and sentenced to three years’ had labour. Sargiff pleaded not guilty. After the jury had returned with a verdict of guilty, Mr Stephenson, for accused, remarked that Sargiff had borne an exemplary character for many years while in New Zealand, where lie had lived for 12 years. Recently, however, he had seemed to have become totally out of touch wdtli conditions here. The prisoner had instructed him that he was anxious to go back to Russia, and in his own interests and those of the country generally a period of detention subject to subsequent exportation might be advisable. Sir Michael Myers pointed out that the prisoner had been convicted in Auckland of being in possession of explosives with harmful mtdnt. Mr Stephenson stated that Sargiff had maintained on that occasion that the explosives were to be used for killr ing fish. His trial had taken place a short time after the Auckland riots; which possibly had made the circumstances appear graver than they might have been. . Mr Macassey said that possibly the

possession of the explosives was “not as bad as it might have been.” In pronouncing the sentence of three years’ hard labour, Sir Michael Myers remarked that the offence was regarded by legislation as so serious that a sentence of hard labour for life liad been allowed for.