PLEA IN DEFENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 73, 28 March 1933, Page 7

PLEA IN DEFENCE

INNOCENT INTENT

STEWART COURT-MARTIAL

COUNSEL'S ADDRESSES

United Press Association—By Electric Tele-

graph—Copyright. (Eeceived March 2S, 11 a.m.)

LONDON, March 27.

At the resumption of the courtmartial on Lieutenant Baillie Stewart, • Lieutenant Eric Wright, a brother officer, said: "I told him he was a fool when he admitted receiving money from Marie Louise. Ho tried to justify himself and quoted one of his commanding officers regarding marriage. I was disgusted and closed the matter. I tried to dissuade him.' from revisiting Marie Louise."

Mr. Norman Parkes, counsel for the defence, urged that it would be awful to convict an officer of a great regiment on charges based on remote suspicion and mere coincidence. Even if Obst and Marie Louise were secret service agents Stewart'"would not necessarily know. Major Shapcott recalled that the Peace Treaty forbade Germany the use of tanks, and therefore Germany would be anxious to secure the latest information. Obst and Marie. Louise, if they had been innocent, would have attended the • court-martial. The case was adjourned. Lieutenant Stewart, of the Seaforth Highlanders, is the first officer to be court-martialled since the war under the Official Secrets Act. He is charged that at Berlin and elsewhere between August 1 and August 20, 1932, he made a note of the following matters: — ■ (1) The organisation of tanks and armoured car equipment. (2) Extent of automatic rifle equipment. (3) Organisation of brigade of tanks, this being an act preparatory to obtaining information which might be useful to the enemy.' Altogether there are ten charges referring to journeys and events between July and November, and including allegations of having obtained near Aldershot information which might be useful to the enemy, and of having arranged a meeting in Holland with Otto Waldemar Obst of Berlin, which was preparatory to communicating information prejudicial to the- State's interests. . ,

The charges mostly refer to tanks, armoured cars, and automatic rifles.