YUGOSLAV TRIAL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 164, 17 July 1946, Page 5

YUGOSLAV TRIAL

ALL 24 DEFENDANTS FOUND GUILTY MIKHAILOVITCH TO BE SHOT. Belgrade, July 14. General Draga Mikhailovi.tch, the Chetnik leader, has been sentenced to be shot for collaboration with the Germans. All the 23 other Chetnik leaders, have also been sentenced by the Court. Ten of will be shot, an J the remainder will receive terms of imprisonment with hard labour varying from 18 months to 20 years. The penalties include confiscation of property. The president of the Court, reading a lengthy indictment against Mikhailovitch and his co-defendaxts, declared that Mikhailovitch had been found guiilty of entering into political and military collaboration from 1941 to 1915 with the occupiers of Yugoslavia against people who revolted for the liberation of the country.

A crowd in the Court cheered the verdict. Mikhailovitch was calm. The date of the execution has not been announced.

Spectators crowded in front of the courthouse in the early hours of the morning for tickets, including hundreds of uniformed partisans and high ranking Yugoslav intellectuals. Ah the spectators were checked at the gate and were obliged to leave brief cases at the gate.