PLEA OF GUILTY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 107, 18 February 1950, Page 5

PLEA OF GUILTY

SPYING IN HUNGARY

BRITISHER’S ADMISSION CN.Z.P. A— Copyright) (10.10) BUDAPEST, Feb. 17. 'Edgar Sanders, a British businessman, pleaded guilty in the Criminal Court to-day to charges of spying and sabotage. He and an American, Robert. Vogeier, were accused of organising economic sabotage and using diplomatic channels to send their reports out of Hungary. Vogeier is vice-presdent of the International Telegraph Company of New York, and Sanders was employed by the Budapest subsidiary of the company. Also accused with them were five Hungarians, one of them a woman. Evidence by Sanders and two of the Hungarians was heard, and the trial was adjourned until to-morrow. The two Hungarians also pleaded guilty. Blond, Sanders, standing erect and impassive in the samecourtroom in which Cardinal Mindzenty was tried, and before the same judge and prosecutor, admitted all the charges against him. 7 . In London to-day, a British Foreign Office spokesman said that Sanders had worked with a department of British military intelligence, called the ‘'Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre,” during the war. His work consisted in interrogating German prisoners. The Hungarian prosecution seemed .to have glamorised this organisation. Hungary to-day rejected Britain s latest Note protesting against the handling, of the Sanders trial. The Hungarian Note, which was delivered to the British Embassy in Budapest, claimed that Britain’s appeal earlier this week for British legal aid for Sanders and for the right of access by the British Consul General to accused, was an attempt to secure special privileges. Sanders, speaking quietly through his interpreter at his trial to-day, said that he first entered the British intelligence service in May, 1940, and received training in counter-intelligence, espionage and sabotage work. He was sent on field security work—counterintelligence —in England, Egypt, Persia, Iraq and Asia. He said that he was sent to Hnngary in 1945 and attached to a British military mission to undertake military espionage work. He was asked to report - on the number and dispositions of Soviet and Hungarian troops. His instructions were to build in Hungary “an underground of agents.” Sanders named a number of officers, in a former British military mission, as his superiors in intelligence work.

War Office Connection

Sanders said that, in 1947, he went to London and returned to Hungary later, under orders of the British intelligence, as a staff member of the International Standard Electric Corporation. This job was merely a cover for his real activities for British military intelligence. A “certain man,” at the War Office in London, had told him that he was to “carry on as .before," and would receive further instructions through members of the British military mission in Budapest. Under War Office instructioins, he had contacted a “Major Handley,” of the British military mission in Budapest, at the beginning of 1947. The major told him to travel about the country and report on the disposition and number of Soviet and Hungarian troops, on military installations, and on economic and political conditions ip the provinces. Sanders said that, when the military missions ended its work, his “superior contacts” were present. He also had certain intelligence connections with the American Legation, including a “Lieutenant-Colonel Hoyn,” who he described as “a military intelligence officer.”

Sanders Examined

Sanders, answering questions, said that Vogeler, the American defendant, arrived in Vienna in 1945. Later Vogeler told him he was a member of the naval intelligence service. Vogeler worked at the American Legation, through “Lieutenant-Colonel • Hoyn,” and the present military attache. He asked Sanders for “certain information” on military matters and the capacity of the Hungarian foreign trade. The Hungarian, Zoltan Rado, pleaded guilty to charges of espionage for Britain and the United States. He is the former deputy-Chief of the Ministry»of Heavy Industry. Rado said that he had been enlisted in England, shortly before the outbreak of war, as an agent amongst Hungarian Leftist groups. In 1947 he repeatedly gave economic and political reports to a • British agent. Rado said that, after he was appointed chief of the Hungarian mission to negotiate contracts with the Standard Electric Corporation, he “worked conscientiously for the benefit of the United States:” In the spring of 1949 he enlisted actively in the American intelligence service, because he realised that only the United States was an _ effective opponent of the Soviet Union and because he hated the Soviet, although he was a member of the. Communist Party. The trfal was adjourned until to-morrow.