PLOT REVEALED IN MADRID

Southland Times, Issue 22997, 17 September 1936, Page 5

PLOT REVEALED IN MADRID

ASSASSINATIONS PLANNED LEADING SOCIALISTS AS INTENDED VICTIMS PRESIDENT AND PRIME MINISTER (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) Madrid, September 15. The police have discovered a plot to assassinate the President (Dr Manuel Azana), the Prime Minister (Senor Francisco Fargo Caballero), the Minister of Labour (Senor Prieto), Senora Irniburi (“La Passionaria”) and General Mangada, the loyalist commander on the Somosierra front. The plot is alleged to have been organized by Senor Manuel Mateo, a former Communist, who is now a Fascist leader. The scheme was financed by Senor Jorge Loring, a nephew of the noted airman, his accomplices being Senor Juan Llovet and Senor Santos Aranda. The last two have already been imprisoned. The assassination was delegated to eight men who came to Madrid from Malaga and Valencia with false passports. A number have been arrested. A drastic purge of the Spanish Navy resulted in the dismissal of 2585 officers. Pilot’s Desperate Stratagem CRASH INTO ENEMY NEWS REEL OPERATOR’S ADVENTURES (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) Madrid, September 15. A Government pilot, Fenix Urtubi, outnumbered by three rebel planes in an air fight, drove straight into an opponent. Both planes crashed in flames. Urtubi was incinerated but the rebel pilot descended by parachute. He was then taken prisoner. A Government plane brought down an insurgent machine intact at Azuaca, near Saragossa, capturing both of the occupants. It was one of a squadron endeavouring to provision the beseiged insurgent city of Huesca by dropping tins of meat, hard bread, and ice, but most of the packages had fallen in the Government lines. Urtubi was the pilot who, flying solo, looped the loop and tipped out a rebel officer on July 27. The Barcelona correspondent of The Times says that Sietamo, which after changing hands several times in the loyalist advance to Huesca and fell to the Government on September 12, is a mass of ruins. The majority of the 400 rebel defenders were killed. Refugees from Huesca report that when Government planes bombed the town 150 men, women and children were taken from their homes and executed in the public square by order of Colonel Solans, whom the rebels, quarrelling among themselves, later executed for incompetence. The Casablanca correspondent of The Times says that Rene Brue, a newsreel operator who arrived by a steamer from Tangier, was arrested by the insurgents for filming incidents after the capture of Anandaleja and Badajoz. He says that he filmed 1000 prisoners in the bull-ring at Anandaleja awaiting execution. Brue was arrested on returning to Seville. This was believed to be the result of denunciation by jealous colleagues. He was threatened with death, but his firm sent by air judiciously cut copies of his films, whereupon he was released.