SECRET TRIAL CONCLUDES

Taranaki Daily News, 21 December 1929, Page 9

SECRET TRIAL CONCLUDES

ALLEGED MUNITIONS CARGO SENSATIONAL GERMAN CASE IS GOVERNMENT INVOLVED? TREATY OF 1919 RECALLED By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 12.43 a.m. London, Dee. 20. All the defendants were acquitted at the secret trial which began at Kiel on Tuesday of Lieutenant Pfotze, German Secret Service, and of Major Seeman and five Berlin business men, including the war-time airman, Herr Beltjens, on a charge of attempting to ship munitions to China in January, 1928, states the Berlin correspondent of the Daily Mail. The Press was not allowed to hear even the judge’s reasons, Is is assumed the defendants were able to prove the attempt had the approval and support of the military and naval authorities. In this connection it is pointed out that in the Treaty of Versailles Germany undertook not to export arms and ammunition.

Vorwaerts, the paper of the Chancellor Her Muller, declares the acquittals certainly have not ended the matter, which will be raised in the Reichstag. When Kiel Customs officials were examining packing eases labelled “brass goods,”° which filled 16 rail trucks, they discovered no fewer than 8,000,009 rifle cartridges, about to be shipped by a Norwegian steamer, it was reported a week ago, at whieh time the Republican Press was vigorously protesting against the secret tria|. The Minister of Defence, General Groener, recently told the Reichstag that it was a perfectly simple case, and promised a full inquiry, but when the trial eame on the Public Prosecutor, actina on the Government’s instructions, demanded the exclusion of the public and Press, as there would be revelations whieh, in the interests of the State, must not be known outside the court.

It was stated that he had been forced to do this because the defence alleged that the military and naval authorities knew and approved of the plan, the failure of which was due to the stupidity of customs officials.