BOLSHEVIK CRIMES

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 97, 29 August 1923, Page 6

BOLSHEVIK CRIMES

MURDER TRIAL OF OFFICIALS.

SIX SENTENCED TO DEATH. Press Association—Copyright. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. (Received 10.55 a.m.) London, August 23. Tlie Morning Post's Helsingfors says the Pravda publishes a horrifying account of the trial of a group of Bolshevik officials at Pavlograd, who were convicted of a long series of abominable crimes agaiinst the population under their charge, including murders, executions without trial, and robberies. In one case, Nikitenko, president of the- Soviet executive committee at Slavianka, and three militiamen abduoted a schoolmistress, and then carried her through the village naked after being tarred. When NUtitenko heard that a woman intended to denounce the outrages, tlie head Sichoolmistrcss was arrested and strangled.

The defence was that the existence of civil war left the officials no time to study law books, but thtf Court refused to accept the pica. Nikitenko and five others were sentenced to death, and twenty militiamen to imprisonment.