CHARGES OF SABOTAGE

Wairarapa Age, 15 March 1933, Page 5

CHARGES OF SABOTAGE

ARREST OF BRITISH EXPERTS IN RUSSIA. ALLEGED' PLOTS TO WRECK POWER STATIONS. THE SOVIET PRESS SILENT. (Received Tuesday, 7 p.m.) LONDON, March 14. A British United Press message states that the Ogpu allege that Vickers’ employees participated in sabotage plotted to wreck electric power stations throughout the Soviet Union. Six Englishmen and 25 Russians have been arrested. The Englishmen are Messrs Charles Nordwall, Gregory, Alan Monkhouse, W. H. Thornton, John Cushy and W. H. MacDonald, all belonging to Vickers. The “Manchester Guardian’s” Moscow correspondent says the Vickers Company’s Leningrad offices were also raided. The arrested will probably be charged with some kind of espionage. The Soviet Press make no mention of the affair. TWO RELEASED. STATEMENT BY OGPU. (Received Tuesday, 8.40 p.m.) LONDON, March 14. Mr. Nordwall has been released conditionally, along with Mr. Monkhouse. The Russians arrested include one woman. The text of the Ogpu's statement is as follows: “An investigation of a senes of unexpected consecutive accidents recently in big electrical power stations at Moscow, Cheli, Abinsk, Zuvesk and Zlatovak revealed that they were due to the sabotaging activities of a group of criminal elements among the employees of the commissainat of heavy industry, who took upon themselves the task of destroying .he electrical power system of the Soviet Union, bringing a halt to the enit serv «s. An investigation disclosed that certain employees of an English firm, the Metropolitan Vickers Company, who are working in the Soviet Union as technical advisers to electrical enterprises were also engaged in these activities.” SAFE AND WELL. MR. MONKHOUSE’S MESSAGE. (Received This Day, 0.30 a.m ) IT „ ~ LONDON, March 14. Mr. Monkhouse has telephoned to his wife at Harpenden, Hertfordshire, from Moscow, that he is safe and well