DEATH PENALTY EXPECTED.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20105, 8 December 1930, Page 11

DEATH PENALTY EXPECTED.

♦ THE SOVIET MASS TRIAL. ACCUSED PLEAD FOR MERCY. (UKITED PRESS ASSOCIATION —BY ELECTRIC TEL.EOEATH- COPYRIGHT.) (Received December 7th, C.30 p.m.) MOSCOW, December C. Millions of Russians expect the death penalty for the eight accused in the mass trial, when sentence is i)romulgated on the evening of December 7th. The prisoners' hardly-assumed bravado has now given place to fear. With their spirits broken under the terrific strain of the trial they have thrown themselves on the mercy of the Court in a desperate appeal "for their lives. Fedotov, the oldest, is reported to have said tremulously: "I am guilty. I do not deserve mercy, but I do not want to die a traitor's death." Ramzin, alleged to bo the ringleader, pitifully declared: "We are not such demons as the Prosecutor has painted us, but I bow my head in shame and humiliation." Sitnin, with tear-filled eyes, advanced his sufferings as a plea of mercy. He and KuprianofE hoped that they would be allowed to exjiiate their crime by honest work. A talking picture was being taken until the Court ordered the machine to be stopped, because its noise interrupted the speakers' utterances. There were pathetic scenes when the accused acknowledged their guilt and appealed for mercy. Ramzin, struggling for self-control, said: "1 understand that this »s my last word. I cannot lie a few hours before death. I have confessed fullv because I believe it is the only means of atonement for my past sins. We defendants are not here to fight or to defend ourselves, but to capitulate Sometimes I feel it is better to die, yet there are times when I long to nnrticipnte in the miracles winch Communism is destined to accomplish." THE PROSECUTOR'S ADDRESS. MOSCOW, December o. Demanding the dcaili sentence for the eight accused professors and engineers the Prosecutor, M. Krylenko declared that the trial had revealed that the capitalist world "was now afraid of the exposure of its preparations for war ' against the Soviet, which would frustrate its plans. The prisoners' confessions had been voluntary. Torture had not been applied. M. Krylenko emphasised the complicity of Sir Henri Deterding (the oil magnate), and quoted a speech by him in Paris in June, prophesying the liberation of Russia. Disregarding the judge's ruling that hostile references must not be publicly made to foreign Powers, M. Krylenko shook a menacing finger at the accused and shouted the name of M. Raymond Poincare. He accused M. Poincare of working hand-in-glove with the counterrevolutionaries, and said: "If M. Poincare wants to know all the details of this plot, we will let him have them. I will let him know that our people are ready for the worst. When the time comes we will fight as one man, and meet the crisi3 armed and prepared.*' Confronting the accused, stoically smoking cigarettes, though visions of the firing squad must have been before their eyes, M. Krylenko demanded that they all be executed. He denounced them as plotters, grafters, and wreckers, and described a« a "pure fake" the French denials of the confessions involving members of the French General Staff. Several reports confirmed the conference in Paris between M. Poincare and the leaders of the Russian industry. M. Poincare's attempt to dismiss the trial as a joke was a trivial polemical trick. M. Krylenko wound up by quoting extracts from Lenin's writings advocating death for enemies of the workers.