KILLING OF KIROV.

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19462, 29 December 1934, Page 5

KILLING OF KIROV.

14 SUSPECTS ON TRIAL. ACCUSED ARRAIGNED IN CHAINS. TROTSKY MAY BE IMPLICATED. United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright. LONDON, Dec. 28. The Warsaw correspondent of the Daily Express states that the trial of Nikolaeff and 13 others accused of the murder of M. Kirov has been begun before a military court in the Smolny Institute, Leningrad—the scene of the crime.

At the last minute the authorities decided that it would be unwise to bold the trial in Moscow as it had been arranged to do. Two thousand soldiers surrounded the institute and the prisoners had their wrists and ankles chained.

Asked how he pleaded Nikolaeff said: "I freed■ Russia from a low-

down scouldrel. Others will finish my work.” Then he burst out laughing. The day was treated as a holiday. Crowds marched through the streets demanding death for all the Zinovibff group. Kaganovitch, one of Stalin’s chief lieutenants, came from Moscow to watch the trial and the railway station was cleared while he left the train. A Moscow radio station announced that a large mass of correspondence from Trotsky has been found which gives evidence of the existence of an organisation \ ith branches in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Germany, which is plotting to upset the Soviet Government.

It was announced from Moscow on December 1 that Sergei Mironovich Kirov had been assassinated “by a murderer sent on behalf of the enemies of the working classes." Kirov, who was aged 48, was a member of the inner circle of Communist rulers. He was a dose friend and co-worker of Stalin anti was regarded in some circles as Stalin’s probable successor.