RUSSIA.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 11999, 17 October 1906, Page 5

RUSSIA.

Execution of Naval Mutineers. Awful Scene?. Press Association.— Telegraph.— Copyright. Received October 16, 9. .55 p.m. ST. PETERSBURG, October 16. Details of the execution of nineteen naval mutineers at Kroustadt, cabled on the sth, show that seventeen accepted the priest's ministrations and two refused. An officer reading aloud the sentences was stopped through the prisoners singing a revolutionary funeral hymn. The prisoners were tied to a rope stretched between two posts. Their request not to have sacks placed over their heads was refused. The firing party, drawn from the Light Infantry, were, like the prisoners, shivering with the cold, and muddled the firing. The volley killed only three outright. The killed and wounded dragged down the others into a confused mass, from which arose cursings at the executioners for their clumsiness. The firing then degenerated into butchery, and the corpses were crammed into sacks and dropped into the eea.