OVERDOSE OF DRUG KILLED KOUTEPOFF.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19119, 11 July 1930, Page 1

OVERDOSE OF DRUG KILLED KOUTEPOFF.

Kidnappers Bungled The Business And Were Shot On Return Home.

(United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received July 11, 11.30 a.m.) PARIS, July 10. “Le Journal ” quotes a Russian newspaper story that General Koutepoff, who was kidnapped on January 26, died from an overdose of chloroform administered by his kidnappers, who were juniors officers of the Ogpu. It is stated that the kidnappers were shot when they returned to Russia for bungling the business and failing to deliver Koutepoff alive.

General Koutepoff, regarded as a leader of the colony of Russian emigres in Paris, disappeared on Sunday, January 26, and fears were entertained by his compatriots as to his fate. He was to have attended a memorial service at the Russian Church in the Rue Mademoiselle. The general left his house in the Rue Rousselet at half-past 10. He was not seen again. For some years General Koutepoff had l>een head of the organisation of Russian ex-service men in Paris, the purposes of which were primarily benevolent, but also political. He enjoyed a degree of authority greater than any other Russian general among the military section of the Russian emigres. As head of that organisation he was particularly disliked by the Bolsheviks, who believed that % the organisation maintained a certain amount of communication with Russia. In consequence of this he had been advised to refrain from going out unattended, and had followed the advice until a few months previously, when he protested that it was absurd.

The general’s career in Russia both before and after the war was distinguished. He was colonel of the Preobrajensky Guards, and after the war fought with Denikin and Wrangel. He was physically a strong man, and it was thought unlikely that he could have been attacked in the open street in broad daylight. The press and public as a whole were convinced that the general had been kidnapped. The Paris police accepted the evidence of Chavreau, a policeman, who claimed to have seen a man resembling the general being carried off in

a motor-car. In official quarters it was believed that he was still alive, but that he might have been taken out of France.

An innkeeper of Chateau-Renard (Loiret), Roger Simon, stated that on Monday, January 27, the day after the general’s disappearance, a grey limousine drew up in front of his inn shortly before noon, and one of the four occupants got out and asked in a pronounced Russian or Polish accent for a glass of rum. He also asked to be directed to Melleroy. The car was travel-stained as though it had come some distance, and Simon saw, as the supposed Russian stepped into the car, a large bag w’hich could have contained the body of a man. Half an hour later a red taxi-cab, also much stained, went past in the same direction, travelling very fast. The significance of the last statement lay in the fact that other witnesses, in speaking 1 of a grey limousine, also spoke of seeing a red taxi-cab accompanying it. Another story, a sensational one, was published in “La Liberte" (Paris). It stated that General Koutepoff was a prisoner in Moscow. The newspaper said that General Koutepoff was taken on board a Soviet vessel off the Normandy coast, close to the town of Houlgate. On his arrival in Moscow every means, including torture, was used to extract the names of the White Russian spies in Moscow. These were then to be arrested and executed. The Soviet would then announce a vast conspiracy against it, and allege the complicity of the French Government. The plan failed because the kidnapping was known to the whole world.