QUISLING ON TRIAL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 224, 21 August 1945, Page 5

QUISLING ON TRIAL

IMPOSING INDICTMENT. INVITATION TO HITLER. (N.Z. Press Association.—Copyright.) (Rec. 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, Aug. 20. Three professional and four nonprofessional Judges are conducting the trial of Vidkun Quisling, which opened in Oslo today. The prosecution is expected to call between 40 and 50 witnesses. The trial opened with the reading of the indictment, which is an imposing document containing many accusations. Quisling pleaded not guilty to all charges. He appeared nervous and very pale and held his head low. The President of the Court (Judge So'lem) had to ask him to stand and speak up. The indictment includes charges under the military and civil laws. In the former category Quisling is charged with inciting the Norwegian armed forces to mutiny and to disloyalty by urovdeasting appeals on April 9, HMO, to cease resistance to the German occupation, with countermanding the mobilisation order, with making an announcement about the lieeing Government, and with urging public officials in the fighting services to lay down their arms and carry out the orders of his new Government. Ho is charged under the civil law with attempting illegally to place Norway under foreign contiol, with assisting tile c,«;emy, with weakening Norway's fighting power, with seeking to bring about constitutional changes by unlawful means, with causing the death of others, with working to cause such deaths (particularly in the persecution of Jews), and with ordinary theft and embezzlement. The Prosecutor (M. Annaeus Schjoedt) said Quisling began negotiations with Hitler before the German invasion and urged him to invade Norway and so forestall Allied plans to occupy Norway as a fortress against Germany. Accused argued that it was vital for Norway to come under the protection of the Greater German Reich.