AN ALLEGED GERMAN SPY.

Wairarapa Age, 8 October 1926, Page 5

AN ALLEGED GERMAN SPY.

HIS PRE-WAR ACTIVITIES. RATHER BELATED DISCLOSURE. (Received Thursday, 8.55 p.m.) LONDON, October 7. The story of an alleged German spy was told before an Anglo-German mixed tribunal sitting in London, when Herman Leibbrand was sued' for £l5lB by the Bankruptcy Trustee. Counsel for the claimant said the first suggestion that Leibbrand was in the service of the German Government arose in 1911, at the time of the Agadir incident, when he was seen in possession of a telegram which, translated, said: “Uirrel (meaning the ex-Kaiser), about to jump.” In 1912, Leibbrand rented a house at Felixstowe and endeavoured to secure control of electrical undertakings and sought to construct a light railway which was of no use in the sparsely populated district, but would have been of enormous utility to an invading army. It was further alleged that Leibbrand took soundings at sea under the pretence that ha was fishing. When the war broke out, he destroyed a large number of documents and buried others in his garden. He was denounced and interned, but later repatriated. Counsel on behalf of the German Government argued that Leibbrand had no State, having forfeited his German nationality by ten years’ absence from Germany. He also denied that he belonged to the Secret Service, and asked why, if Liebbrand was a spy, he was not courtmartialled.

Counsel for the claimant replied that the British Government was not in possession of the facts which had been disclosed since.

The Court reserved its decision.—(A. and N.Z.)