Czech Spy Trial

Wanganui Chronicle, 18 February 1949, Page 5

Czech Spy Trial

PRAGUE, Feb. 13.—The State Court will try General Marel Kutlvasr and 12 accomplices on February 17 on charges of espionage and plotting against the Republic, according to the Prague Press, quoted by the Associated Press correspondent. General Kutlvasr has generally been regarded as the head of the Pragde uprising that drove the Germans from the capital in 1945. Press accounts say, however, that the trial will reveal that he tried to set up a Government opposing the London Government in-exile headed by Presiden Benes, which came batk *to Czechoslovak soil and set up a ccalition Government at Kisice while the Germans were being forced out of the country. Press accounts said that he conducted negotiations with Karl Frank, the German “protector” of Bohemia-Moravia, and with General Vlasov, an anti-Russian Ukrainian leader. He is, accused of negotiating to allow the German troops in Prague to leave the capital free. General Kutlvasr will be arrainged on charges ot spying for “foreign reaction,” collecting arms and explosives, using illegal pamphlets, and dealing with transferred Germans to carry cut his plans since the Communist revolution last February, when he was removed “for his dark plottings.” There have been stories in Prague that a large number of army officers and civilians have been arrested in Prague and Pilsen and charged with plots against the Government.

Four youths were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from four to seven years at Bratislavia today for attempting to steal an aircraft at Bratislavia airport 1o fly to the American zone of Austria.