DENIED IN BRITAIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26792, 8 June 1948, Page 5

DENIED IN BRITAIN

KIDNAPPING OF SOVIET OFFICER NEWS AGENCY’S ALLEGATIONS N.Z.P.A. —Copyright LONDON, June 6. A British Foreign Office spokesman categorically denied a Tass News Agency report from Moscow that the British authorities had kidnapped Colonel Y. D- Tassoyev, of the Russian Army. m The spokesman said that Tass allegations of torture and ill-treatment besides being untrue, were “ hign.ly improbable.” The British Government would have been unlikely to return Tassoyev where he could make a statement on the alleged atrocities had they been true. The Tass version of Tassoyev s disappearance is that after dinner, at the home of Mr C. R. Clem, American port director at Bremen, two men, understood to be British intelligence officers took Tassoyev by plane to a block of flats in Kensington, which “is the rendezvous of British Intelligence Service.” He met the landlady. Mrs Wiggin, and her daughter, Betty. Russian-speaking British intelligence officers tried to persuade Tassoyev to remain in London, then “ resorted to threats of blackmail and violence to extort a statement justifying unprecedented violence, and to extricate themselves from a scandalous affair.’ “ Repeatedly Beaten Up ” Tass added that Tassoyev escaped on May 6 into the Olympia Exhibition grounds, and shouted that he had been kidnapped, and asked to be taken to the Soviet Embassy. The police Kept him at Hammersmith Police Station from May 6 td May 20. Tassoyev was “repeatedly beaten up” when he refused to sign a statement. Tass concluded: “As the whole story became more and more widely known, the British authorities were compelled to return Tassoyev to the Soviet authorities in Germany.” , , , Reuter says that the Kensington flat where Tassoyev • was alleged y beaten up is now empty, with uncollected mail in the mail box. The porte; of the flats confirmed that there had been a tenant named Mrs Wiggin. but she moved out suddenly a fortnum ago. Several doormen at Olympia Halt =aid they remembered “ hearing about that Russian fellow incident hu. would not vouch for its authenticity. Neighbours standing on the doorsteps discussing the story spoke or seeing “big cars standing in from of the flat late at nights.” The police refused to comment. Statement by American The Bremen correspondent of _ the Associated Press says the Amer'can port director, Mr Clem, said he would like to tell the full story about Tas*ovev to clear himself, but the United States Military Government hid ordered him not to talk. The Moscow correspondent of tin. British United Press reports the Moscow morning newspapers .eatnrpd the Tassoyev story, but thc.e was not in the Tass report a single direct quotation from the officer aboiu his experiences. ' A Foreign Office spokesman announced on May 6 that Colonel D. Tassoyev the Russian officer recently in charge of the Soviet Reparation Mission in the American enclave Bremen had left voluntarily and had arrived’in England. The spokesman added that Colonel Tassoyev was dm to return to the Soviet Union. In Eng land he handed himself over to the British authorities, and asked permission to enter the United Kingdom. On May 28 the British authorities ieturned Colonel Tassoyev to the Russian zone.