Secret Police.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 24 August 1910, Page 4

Secret Police.

METHODS 01'' RUSSIA. STARTLING EVIDENCE IN TRIALS. Sensational evidence of the ways of the Russian secret police win given on Tuesday at the Seine sizes, when a Russian named Michael .Hups came up for trial for the attempted assassination of Colon' 1 . Von Klhoten, sub-head of the \!< • cow Secret Police. R/ips fired several shots at tin colonel in an hotel in the Rue in !May last year, but none of tii-Mn took effect. His defence is that ih tried to kill the colonel in order to prove to his friends that ihe was i o; an agent provocateur in the way o. the Russian police. Rips, says the Paris eorresp indent of the Morning Leader, tol' the court the story of his life - now little by little—although lie ras in comfortable circumstances—he wal- - to become a revoliition:ir\ by seeing the atrocities perpetrate;, around him. At Odessa, for instance, he was a witness of tho massacres _ that took place during the war with Japan, when the naliee. under the pretence of p itting (:c;-wi. revolts, committed veritable crimes. In 1905 Rips was arrested mi:. throwui into prison for liaviiig tal.e.i part in a plot against the prelect oi Moscow. He asserts that he innocent of any plot, and that tin case against him was got up bv the gendarmerie. For live days aite; hi.s arrest I:e refused to eat anvlhim. hoping that he would die of starvation. He was, however, sent to Siberia, whence he escaped and returned t: Moscow, only to lie rearrested uu taken ibefore Colonel \'on Ivhotoa. The colonel, ilie says, offerer 1 to savi hini from deportation if he woal. ,jo.in the secret police. This just after Azeff had! been unma.sk?d, and it was suggested to Rips tha. he should 'replace Azeff. PRETENDED TO ACCEPT. Rips indignantly refused, he said, and asked to be sent bar k to prison, but on second tilioiigi'rts ho deci !e to pretend to accept the offer wif a view of being in a position to pui the revolutionaries on their g'lar against _ the agents-jwovocateurs ii, the service of ti'.ie police. Ee was accordingly, set afc Liberty. Tlie colonel advised him to piovoke out/rages, he said, whercupoi. the president interrupted him wit the words: — "If the colonel, who prnfo.sr against your statements, wished imake you, not a spy, but an a»ent provocateur, the public conscience would condemn him and not a v. ice would be raised in .his defence." "When I affirm that lie wa liter! I; make me an agent-provocateur," ie pined the accused, "I am teHiii": the t ['\r JfesMes, the word of Colonel \ on Khoten is not the word • f ai, army colonel, but tlie word of a police colonel." When Rips arrived in Paris Ik told a friend of his dilemma, am also M. Bourtzeff, and. both agreef that it was impossible for him t<7p!a,\ the part he had assumed. It was t: prove his loyalty to the revolutionairy party and also to revenge bun j . ie co 'onel that Rips decide: to kill .him. Colonel Von Khoten, who v, evidence, is now the ihead of tin Mhtical police at St. Peters'in r<r. He denied that he tried to indue Kips to become an a gent-provoca-teur. _ "We have no agents-provocateur in. our police," he said; "we ha v. oiiy spies. Among them sdme- [ through excessive zeal—may allow themselves to -be dragged into .regret table errors, but when we aire aware of it we put our foot down. It happens, however, that we do vol always know."