A PRINCE EXILED.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 10237, 28 August 1909, Page 4

A PRINCE EXILED.

RUSSIAN METHODS

[By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.]

(Per Press Association.)

Received' August 2S, at 5.30 a.m. St. Petersburg, August 27. Prince Lopukhin, formerly Chief of the Russian Police Department, who was sentenced to exile for treason in connection with the Azeff affair, has started for Yakutsk, the place of his exile. His wife and his brother-in-law are accompanying him.

[A communique w r as issued by the Government declaring that' M. Lopukhin w r as called to account solely for his revelations to the social revolutionaries of Azeft's co-operation with the police for the prevention of the terrorist plots of those criminal organisations. In view of the. absolutely unjustifiable excitement:and distrust, which, the misleading reports cited aroused among the public, the Government considers it its duty once more to declare emphatically that Azeff has ever, or in any way, taken part in any terrorist act or other criminal deeds of the revolutionaries; and further, that there has been -no hint of A.zeff's participation in political crimes against Government officials. The murder of the Grand Duke Alexis and M. de Plehve arc included in this repudiation. Azeff was subsequently shown to have been, a fiend who conspired with Government or revolutionaries indiscriminately so long as he could gratify his thirst for intrigue and brutality! While posing as a revolutionary leader, he was in reality a police spy. But he went further than this, and actually' conspired to secure the death of 'numbers of Government officials. After his exposure by Prince Lopukhin he fled to England, but later ventured to Europe, where he was supposed to have been murdered' by the friends of those betrayed. His duplicity was mostevident, but the Court party could not allow it to go forth that they had connived with such a man; hence they refused to pardon Lopukhin.]