SCENE OF THE CRIME

Northern Advocate, 29 December 1934, Page 9

SCENE OF THE CRIME

KIROV MURDER TRIAL OF FOURTEEN MEN NIKOLAEFF REJOICES. FREED RUSSIA OF SCOUNDREL. Wnlted Press Association —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.! (Received 9 a.m.) LONDON, December 28. The Warsaw correspondent of the “Daily Express” states that the trial of Nikolaeff and 13 others accused of the murder of M. Kirov has been begun before a military court in the Smolny Institute, Leningrad— the scene of the crime. At the last minute the authorities decided that it would be unwise to hold the trial in Moscow, as it had been arranged to do. Two thousand soldiers surrounded the institute and 'the prisoners had their wrists and ankles chained. Asked how he pleaded, Nikolaeff said; “I freed Russia from a lowdown scoundrel. Others will finish my work.” Then he burst out laughing. The day was treated as a holiday. Crowds marched through the streets demanding the death of all the Zinovieff group. Kaganvitch, one of Stalin’s chief lieutenants, came from Moscow to watch the trial, and the railway station was cleared while he left the train.A. Moscow radio announced that a large mass of correspondence from Trotsky gives evidence of the existence of an organisation with branches in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Germany, which is plotting to upset the Soviet Government.