British Soldiers Take Law Into Own Hands, Stop Mass Executions

Wanganui Chronicle, 19 December 1950, Page 5

British Soldiers Take Law Into Own Hands, Stop Mass Executions

LONDON, Dec. 18 (Rec. 6 pml- I Wrathful Northumberland Fusiliers i took the law into their own hands: yesterday and stopped the execution j of 35 more Korean men and women I and children, says the “Daily Mails i Seoul correspondent. I In freezing weather they kept <.n | all-night watch armed with St en, guns on a hole that was intended to . be a new mass grave. At day.ight | they disarmed South Korean police who marched out as a firing squad and forced them to fill the hole in. Brigadier Tom Brodie, 291 h. Brit-j ish Brigade commander-in-chief, had I already said of the execution on Fri- ’ day: “I am making certain this I doesn’t happen in my area again." | “The Times" Seoul correspondent i says there has been little or no di-, minution in the number of executions of suspected Communist sympathisers by the South Korean Gov-1

ernment. Eye-witnesses reported that several women prisoners destined to be shot carried babies on their backs. Many women already had beeh shot for “political reasons.” The Korean Home Minister, Mr. Chough, today assured the United Nations Commission that future executions would be conducted in a more humane manner. Mr. Chough said this after an exhumation which failed to find a young boy reported among 34 Koreans shot on Friday. The commission does not yet regard the incident as closed. British and American troops bivouacked alongside the site of the executions said that South Koreans shot another group of prisoners this afternoon, a few hours after the exhumation party and officials left American military police were present they claimed.