HUNGARIAN SCANDAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19416, 26 August 1926, Page 9

HUNGARIAN SCANDAL.

BANKNOTE FORGERIES. RESULT OF THE APPEALS. (Received 8.5 p.ia.) Reuter. BUDAPEST, Aug. 24: The Appeal Court has confirmed the judgment of the Lower Court on all the points in the case of the French banknote forgeries. The sentences imposed on Gercc, adviser to the Cartographical Institute, and Raba, formerly secretary to Prince Windischgraetz, were reduced, the first from two years to 18 months and the second from 18 months to one year's imprisonment.

Early in January this year extensive forgeries of French banknotes were discovered in Hungary and Prince Louis Windischgraetz was arrested on a . charge of complicity in the forgeries. His secretary, Raba, had been arrested previously. The theory was that the forgers hoped to create a financial panic, during ; wliich a monarchist coup, for the restoration to the throne of the ex-Crown Prince Otto, son of the Emperor Charles, could be brought about. . Prince Windischgraetz was formerly Royal Chamberlain and Chief of the Secretariat of the Ministry of. Foreign Affairs.. He .is a relative of the old ■■lmperial' House of Haps-' burg, and was a recognised leader of the so-called Legitimists.. , . , The arrest resulted in revelations of a .most remarkable plot. Nadossy, Chief of Police, and a close friend' of Admiral Horthy, the Regent, was suspended. A disciplinary inquiry into his alleged neglect of duty; was ordered. : There .were nrreste in Serbia and Holland on" charges of uttering forged French" notes. Three of the persons arrested in Holland belong to well-known Hungarian families.' They <vere alleged to have been engaged in an endeavour to accumulate funds to assist the movement- for the restoration of Prince Otto by exchanging -'false monev for good. The disclosure of the- plot was not achieved ; without a keen struggle within administrative circles The police ■secured evidence of the printing of false notes in the Hungarian Army's maporintihg works. France was .very insistent- on the conspiracy being cleared up, nnrl the guilty. parties being punished. The trial of the accused opened at Budapest early in May. It was proved that, the Premier, Count Bethlen, bad knowledge of the riot. The former Premier, Count Teleki, stated in evidence that Prince Windischgraetz revealed the plot in 1921. after which witness informed Nadossy, the Chief of Police, Count- Bethlen and Bishop Zadravecz. Teleki admitted having helped to distribute the notes. Another ex-Premier, Friedrich, "said Count Bethlen signed the credentials of the, couriers wbo transported the notes across the frontier. At the close of the trial on May 26 Prince Windischgraetz and Nadossy asked that as they were the ringleaders they alone should be punished and their fe! low-prisoners released because they had merely acted on instructions. >The Prince admitted that he had made a political mistake in organising the/forgeries. Sentences of four- years' penal servitude were passed on Prince Windischrrraetz and Nadossy. and of two years on Geroc, adviser to the Cartographical Institute. Twosmembers of the institute.-' the Prince's secretary, Rnba. and the other accused men, received sentences ranging from 18 months' to one month's imprisonment. Bnross, director of the Savings Bank, and Szoertoye, vice-director of the National Union, were acquitted. Appeals were lodged by the prosecution for more severe sentences and by defendants for mitigation of the sentences.