Trial Of Airmen Demanded

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31093, 23 June 1966, Page 13

Trial Of Airmen Demanded

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) TOKYO, June 22. The North Vietnamese news agency said today that Roman Catholics in Nghe An province in North Vietnam have sent petitions to the Hanoi Government asking for the trial of captured American airmen as war criminals, United Press International reported.

“These petitions denounced the barbarous crimes committed by United States aggressors in bombing and strafing churches, pagodas, schools, hospitals and populated areas . . . killing or wounding large numbers of inhabitants,” said the report, broadcast over Radio Hanoi and monitored in Tokyo. The petitions said United States aircraft had attacked 22 churches and three seminaries, and singled out the Xuan Phong seminary in Dien Chau, which it said has been bombed four times.

“The petitions warmly welcomed the proposal of the British philosopher Bertrand Russell to set U P a war crimes tribunal to try Johnson, McNamara, Dean Rusk and their like,” the broadcast said. In a broadcast beamed to Thailand, Radio Hanoi said officials had to rush in and protect three captured United States pilots paraded before

an anti-American rally in North Vietnam, the Associated Press reported. The broadcast said the officials had to protect the Americans after the shouting crowd demanded that they be put on trial. Other recent Radio Hanoi broadcasts have repeatedly denounced United States air raids on North Vietnam, and have called for the punishment "of American pilots.