GUILTY OF TREASON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25173, 13 March 1943, Page 5

GUILTY OF TREASON

VERDICT IN LEIBRANDT CASE DEATH SENTENCE PASSED CAPETOWN, Mar. 11. Robey Leibrandt was found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death. Giving judgment, the judge said the German Government would not have given Leibrandt a passage in a submarine if it had not been greatly interested in Leibrandt’s project. Liebrandt probably had an arrangement with the German Government for purposes of his own, which were partly also the purposes of the German Government. A German parachutist captured in North Africa was a witness at the trial of Robey Liebrandt and six others who were charged with treason; Leibrandt represented South Africa as a heavyweight boxer at the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936 The German parachutist, who was flown to Pretoria to give evidence, said he recognised Leibrandt, who had been a lance-corporal in his division in Germany in 1940-41. Much of the parachutist’s evidence was given in secret. The Crown alleged that Leibrandt was sent from Germany to South Africa in a U-boat with large sums of money and radio equipment for organising rebellion against the South African Government.