CRYPTIC MESSAGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21470, 19 April 1933, Page 11

CRYPTIC MESSAGE

THORNTON TO HIS WIFE PREPARATION FOR SHOCK THE AGONY OF WAITING By Tekprmph—Press Association—Copyright (Received Apiil 18. 21.55 p.m.) LONDON, April IS The wife of Mr. W. H. Thornton. 0110 of tho Viokors engineers on trial in Moscow, luis received through the Foreign Office a personal, cryptic mes- ) sage from her husband, warning her "not to he shocked" at the result of the trial. The message adds: "I have little 7 doubt that my punishment will bo the k most severe of all the Englishmen." s ]Mr. Thornton asks his wife to be brave, ' but says he cannot stand the agony • of waiting for sentence much longer. ; FRIENDS OF SOVIET INDEPENDENT LABOUR OPPONENTS OF BRITAIN : (Received April 18. 9.45 p.m.) LONDON, April 17 ' The annual conference of the Independent Labour Party at Derby to-day unanimously resolved to do all in its 1 power to resist any attempt to strangle tho progress of the Soviet. : The conference further pledged the 3 party to agitate for a general strike, to restrain the British Government in tho event of any attempt to make war on Russia. Mr. Fenner Brockway, the chairman, in supporting this attitude, said: "Wo will make it perfectly clear that we 1 stand openly with Russia against our Government." , The Daily Mail says tho members of the Independent Labour Party who have proclaimed their support for the Soviet against their own countrymen dishonour themselves at the moment when Moscow is giving the world an object lesson in what Soviet justice means. OGPU'S PRISONERS c EXTRACTING CONFESSIONS : -BRUTAL METHODS REVEALED Times Cable' LONDON, April 17 In a letter to the Times a scientist. ; Professor Tchernavin, formerly head of • the laboratories of the Northern Fish- [ eries Trust, discloses the Ogpu's methods of extracting confessions. He says - he was accused of sabotage in 1931 and ' was placed with 100 others in a cell 75 yards square which was infested with I vermin. [ The writer says he was threatened ' that if he did not sign a confession he I would be shot and his wife would be • arrested. He refused and was sent, s without trial, to five years' penal ser- ! vitudei to the Solovetsky concentration i camp from which he escaped in 1932. The measures the Ogpu applied to Professor Tchernavin's fellow prisoners, he says, included forcing them to stand without food or drink for six days and nights; placing them, undressed, before windows open to the winter cold; crowding 300 men and women in a single room kept at a high temperature for six days and then forcing them to run in batches of 40 from the room until they signed confessions or dropped senseless.

DEBT TO VICKERS DENUNCIATION UNLIKELY OPINION OF ECONOMISTS LONDON, April 17 The Moscow representative of the British United Press states that from conversations with well-informed Soviet economists he gathers that the Government does not intend to use the trial of the Vickers employees as a pretext for denouncing its debt to the company. His informants believe the Soviet .s most unlikely to impair its record for the punctual payment of foreign obligations. It is understood that two of tho Vickers Company's employees, Messrs. Buckle and Burke, are ready to stay in Russia to fulfil outstanding contracts if the firm desires them to do so. As for the scenes in Court the correspondent says the only laugh this afternoon was when the prosecutor said the Englishmen not only paid the Russian prisoners for espionage and sabotage, "but paid them stingily." POSSIBLE SENTENCES SURMISES IN MOSCOW MOSCOW. April 17 j It is surmised locally that Gregory will be acquitted, that Mac Donald and Thornton will be sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, and Monkhouse to three years, that Cushny and Nordwall will he bound over, that Guscv and Lobanov will bo condemned to death and the other accused to varying terms of im- j I prison men t. ! The sentences on tho Britons, it is I.thought, may be commuted to exile as I the Soviet obviously is anxious to hear ! tho last of the international aspects of j tho a (Fair. The general impression among corresj pondents is that death sentences on the , Englishmen are not likely, but that i there is grave danger of imprisonment for them. SPIES IN BRITAIN EXPULSION DEMANDED LONDON, April 17 The Daily Mail says Ogpu spies should bo expelled from Britain to prevent tho execution of M. Yishinsky s threat to investigate Thornton's activities iu London, else the result might be a repetition of crimes liko the muidei of JKutepofF in Paris.