Sabotage Alleged

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 7106, 15 March 1933, Page 7

Sabotage Alleged

Against British in Moscow

SIX ENGLISHMEN UNDER

ARREST

United Pross Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright Received Tuesday, 9 p.m. LONDON, Mar. 14.

Mr. Alan Monkhouse has been released but is not allowed to leave Moscow. A British United Press message states that the Ogpu allege that Vickers’ employees participated in sabotage and plotted to wreck the electric power stations throughout tho Soviet Union. Six Englishmen and 25 Russians were arrested. The additional Englishmen are Messrs Charles Nordwall and Gregory, both belonging to Vickers. The Manchester Guardian’s Moscow correspondent says the Vickers Company’s Leningrad offices were also raided. The arrested men will probably be charged with some kind of espionage. Tho Soviet Press make no mention of the affair. May Have Grave Consequences CHARGES NOT STATED LONDON, Mar. 13. The British authorities so far have been unable to discover the charges against the persons arrested in Moscow or even where they are imprisoned. Unless prompt release is accompanied by apologies the incident may take a grave turn. The Soviet Foreign Office at Moscow professes ignorance of the arrest. Sir Felix Pole, chairman of Metropolitan Vickers, Ltd., called at the Foreign Office and was informed that the Government was considering the report of the British Ambassador at Moscow. Ogpu’s Allegations Received Tuesday, 9.40 p.m. LONDON, Mar. 14. Mr. Nordwall has been released conditionally along with Mr. Alan Monkhouse. Those arrested include one woman.

Tho text of the Ogpu statement is as follows: “Investigation of a series of unexpected and consecutive accidents rccontly in the big electrical power stations at Moscow, Cheli-Abinslc, Zuvesk and Zlatovsk revealed they were due to the sabotaging activities of a group of criminal elements among employees of the commissariat of heavy industry who set themselves the task of destroying the electrical power systems of the Soviet Unions and bringing a halt to tho enterprises it serves. Investigation disclosed that certain employees of the English firm of Metropolitan Vickers who were working in the Soviet Union on tho basis of an agreement for technical aid to electrical enterprises were also engaged in these activities.”

Intense Indignation in Britain

(British Official Received Tuesday, 10.30 p.m. RUGBY, Mar. 13

Intense indignation was created here by the news of the arrest of four British subjects in Moscow. Mr. Monkhouso and Mr. Thornton were dining when Ogpu agents entered tho house and placed them under arrest, and Mr. Cushy and Mr. Macdonald were arrested at the former’s flat some hours later.

Replying to a question in the House of Commons, the Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin said the Foreign Secretary was already in communication with the British Ambassador on the subject and ho could say nothing further at present.

Safe and Well

Received Wednesday, 2 a.m. LONDON, Mar. 14,

Mr. Monkhouse telephoned his wife in Harpendon, Hertfordshire, from Moscow: “Safe and well.”