FATE OF JAP. OFFICER

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19042, 16 June 1936, Page 6

FATE OF JAP. OFFICER

DEATH IN PEKIN BRAWL

RCHO IN COMMONS

(British Official Wireless.)

Reed. 1 p.m. RUGBY, June 15. Reference was made in the House oi Commons to-day to the death ol the Japanese officer in a disturbance at a Pekin cabaret on .May 26, in connection with which allegations appeared incriminating soldiers belonging to the British Embassy guard. Recalling that the preliminary investigation, wl'iicn was set on foot by the british Embassy as soon as reports appeared in the local press, had established that there had been no British troops either on pass or on duty outside their own quarters at the. time when the incident was stated to have taken place, the Foreign Scrctary. Mr. Anthony Eden, stated that, following receipt c.i official notification from the Japanese Embassy. a British military court of inquiry had been set up in June. Meanwhile when permission was requested for the body ol the murdered man to be examined by the doctor to His .Majesty's Embassy, he was informed that it had been cremated on May 29, that was, on the day before the Japanese Note was handed in. The court of inquiry effectively confinned the result of the preliminary investigations. The Japanese Embassy, however, subsequently submitted the testimonies of a number of witnesses, of Japanese or Korean extraction, in support of the original Japanese allegations. These witnesses asserted that they had identified three members of the British Embassy guard as being involved in certain disturbances which took place on the night of the murder. ThcMiivestigations were proceeding and the witnesses mentioned were to be examined by the court of inquiry.