SPY TRIAL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 104, 15 February 1950, Page 5

SPY TRIAL

BRITISH COUNSEL EXCLUDED HUNGARY GOES BACK ON UNDERSTANDING (N.Z.P. A.-Reuter— Copyright). (Rec. 9.25 a.m.) LONDON, Feb. 14. The Hungarian Government has refused to allow the British Consul in Budapest to see Mr Edgar Sanders, whose trial for spying opens there on February 17, the Foreign Office spokesman said today. Hungary also had rejected Britain’s request to send counsel to prepare Sanders’s case, and visas for British and other foreign pressmen to go to Budapest to cover the trial have been refused.

Sanders, who is Budapest representative of the Standard Electric Company, was arrested last November with an American, Robert Vogeler, vice-pre-sident of the International Telegraph Company of New York. Five Hungarians, including a woman face trial with them. Britain’s Minister in Budapest, Mr G. Wallinger, saw the Hungarian Foreign Affairs Under-Secretary, Dr. Beri, at the week-end.

According to an earlier understanding, there should have been no objection to the Consul seeing Sanders, but the British spokesman in London said to-day that Hungary had gone back on that understanding. Dr. Beri'had said that the presence of a British lawyer would be intolerable interference with justice. Mr Wallinger’s repy to this had been that Britain was interested only in seeing that justice was done. The spokesman said the only deduction that could be made from refusal to allow consular visits was that the Hungarians did not dare to grant access to the accused in the course of his preparation for a familiar type of propaganda trial. Two tickets had been given to the British Legation so that legation officials could hear the trial.