AMERY HANGED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 300, 20 December 1945, Page 5

AMERY HANGED

TRAITOR TO BRITAIN HELPED THE NAZIS Recd. 11 p.m. London, Dec. 19. A self-confessed traitor to Britain, and son of a statesn /a who has rendered great service to England and the Empire, John Amery was hanged to-day at Wandsworth prison. He pleaded guilty to charges of treason and was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey. He made broadcasts for the Nazis ail over Europe and helped their cause wherever he could. A small crowd gathered outside the prison gates at the time of the execution.

The execution was carried out by an executioner recently returned from the execution of the Belsen beasts in Germany. A man and a woman waited in a car outside the prison for several hours before the execution. The man, it is believed, was Captain Julian Amery, who had an interview with his brother last night. The woman was in tears. Neither would give an indication of their identity, or the reason for their vigil. The ringing of a distant church bell was the only intimation to the couple that the execution hour was reached. They had their car parked in an avenue facing away from the prison gates and drove away when formal notices of the execution were posted on the gates at 9.15 a.m. The only other spectators, who had waited in drizzling rain, were several soldiers and a group of workmen. Mr. L. S. Amery, a former Secretary of State for India, to make appeal to Cabinet, in an llth.-hour effort to save his son, arrived at the House of Commons last night with a bundle of letters, says the “Daily Mirror.” Each letter contained an appeal to Cabinet to use its influence to gain a reprieve for his son, less on legal grounds than on the state of his son’s health. It was his first visit to the House of Commons since his defeat at the general election, and he stayed long enough to hand over the letters, which, according To the paper, he asked should be delivered by special messenger. Mr. Amery then went to pay a last visit to his son in the condemned cell.