Greek Executions.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 December 1922, Page 1

Greek Executions.

BARBARITY ALLEGED,

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION LONDON, December 19. The “Daily Express’s” Athens special correspondent writes about the Greek executions and he reveals that barbarous horrors attended the execution of the Ministers, which the militarycensorship has thus far prevented from being published. After the trial, the Revolutionary Committee sat until three in the morning, debating the execution. When their decision was made, it was carried out swiftly. M. Gou naris (Premier) was taken from hospital on a stretcher, and motored to a place a-.mile and a half outside the city, where he was left on the stretcher in a dying state, while the motor van went back to fetch five other prisoners. One of them died of heart failure in the van, but be was propped up with the others.

AT. Gounaris had injections of strychnine to strengthen his heart, and so enable him to stand up in front of the firing party. The Ministers were then asked if they had anything to say, but none replied. The order to fire was given, and the moment that the Ministers fell, the firing party rushed forward and emptied their revolvers into the corpses, including that of the man who died on the way. The bodies were then thrown into a lorry, taken to the public cemetery, and flung in a heap on muddy ground. The relatives later wore given half an hour to fetch the bodies, or otherwise they would be thrown into a pauper’s grave. In one case, the widow was not notified, so she was unable to rescue her husband’s body. The other mourners bad to pull the heap of bodies apart to find their dead, which were almost unrecognisable from the mnd.