MOSCOW TRIAL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21466, 13 April 1933, Page 11

MOSCOW TRIAL

OPENING PHASE BRITISH ENGINEERS DETAILS OF CHAEGES 'ALLEGED WRECKING SCENE IN THE COURT By TelpTrnpli—Press Association—Copyright (Received April 13. 1.15 a.m.! 1 MOSCOW. Anril 12 The trial of the Metropolitan Vickers Company's employees began at noon todnv. Two Red soldiers with fixed bayonets guarded//the dock and a dozen soldiers stood on the platform. Nino lawyers sat together. Tho public rose as the Judges—ordinary army men dressed in mufti—entered the Court. The Soviet Foreign Office issued a long snmn\ary of the indictment against tho British and Russian employees of the Vickers firm charging them with counter-revolutionary activities and with damaging plants in order to undermine Soviet industry and weaken the Soviet State; collecting and utilising secret information of military and State importance; bribing employees of the Staj&'s electricity stations in connection with their country; and revolutionary wrecking activities.' An expert commission appointed to study the documents reported that tho breakdowns of plants were due to crimilal neglect or deliberate wrecking. METHODS OF OGPU PRECEDENTS QUOTED ONE-SIDED JUSTICE (Received April 12. 5.55 p.m.) (times Ca,blo LONDON, April 11 The Riga correspondent of the Times, writing apropos the pending trial of the Vickers engineers in Moscow, recalls that all " wrecker " trials in Russia have been based on prisoners' confessions secured by the Ogpu web implicating/ all the accused. When prisoners have shown a disposition to deny confessions a night spent in the Ogpn's cells has resulted in an alteration of their attitude. Alleged " wrecker " trials are not trials in the ordinary sense, says the correspondent, but public demonstrations of guilt which has been officially decided and proclaimed in advance. Tho whole of the members of the Court, even the defending counsel, are ranged on tho side of the prosecution. When two defence barristers at a trial in Shakhintinsky in 1928 broke tho harmony and attempted to plead the innocence of the accused M. Vishinskv. who then was a Judge, ordered their immediate arrest and trial for collusion and disloyalty to the Soviet. Mr. William Strang, counsellor to the British Embassy in Moscow, who is Charge d'Affairs in the absence of the Ambassador, Sir Esmond Ovey, Is to attend .the trial of the Vickers engineers. Members of the Embassy staff end stenographers will also be present. MRS. A. MONKHOUSE u TALK WITH HUSBAND WAITING FOR THE VERDICT (Received April 12, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, April 12 Mrs. Allan Monkhouse, wife of the New Zealand engineer who is one of the accused in Moscow, is living in Hertfordshire. She had her last talk with her husband over the telephone before the trial. Mr. Monkhouse said he was not allowed to refer to the trial. She said ho spoke to her about his will "and all arrangements in cases —" she could not finish the sentence. Mrs. Monkhouse said she had been married,;2o years and had a girl of 18 and a boy of 12. She was not disturbed about the Soviet's suggestions concerning her husband. He was incapable of deceit. Madame Kutosova, the secretary mentioned in the White Paper, was her friend. The accused man's wife said she had a visa and was ready to go to Moscow, but her husband had said her presence would cause him anxiety and embarrassment. " So I am waiting," she said. " 1 have wept for a month, but will weep no more. He asked me to keep calm. I do not believe they will shoot him, but if thev can arrest him they can shoot him. can 1 do?" RUSSIAN GOODS POWER TO STOP ENTRY BILL PASSED BY LORDS British Wireless RUGBY, April 11 In moving the second reading of the Russian Goods Import Prohibition Bill in the House of Lords, Viscount Hailsham, Minister of War, said the Soviet owed the Metropolitan Vickers Company at the end of last month no less than £1',500.000. The company had every reason to expect a continuance of the contracts. The economic power conferred by the till was perhaps the only form of pressure the Government could use to protect British subjects who were in peril. J Lord Hailsham added that the Government had the right to demand that British subjects arrested in a foreign country should be tried by an impartial tribunal with reliably obtained evidence. The danger in the present case was that neither condition would operate. "Nothing could he more cruel or cowardly," he said, "than the way in Which tho arrested men have been tortured. "The Soviet Minister of Justice lias laid down that the Courts are organs of the State, and that their duty is frot to determine guilt but to decide whether conviction would be in the interests of the administration." Lord Passfield (Labour) suggested that the matter could have been better handled by friendly representations instead of holding a machine-gun at the head of the Soviet. -Russian procedure Was not half as bad as that practised in Poland and the United States, and Britain's own police had been guilty of much tho samo sort of treatment of accused persons. Viscount Buckmaster said that Lord fassfield's utterance might be harmless In a debating society, but was dangerous in the present circumstances. The bill was passed through all its •tages. f: Sir Esmond Ovey, British Ambassador to Russia, and Sir John Simon, Foreign listened to the debate.