SOVIET RUSSIA.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 October 1927, Page 2

SOVIET RUSSIA.

(Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.]

SOVIET SPY TRIALS. LONDON, Oct. 19.

The forthcoming trial of five Russians who are alleged to have been employed on espionage work by the British Mission in Moscow, was made the occasion of melodramatic charges against the mission. The names of the accused, who are all stated to have confessed are: Cyril and Yladimir Prove, the sons of a former Moscow millionaire; Koro Pakoff, Counsellor to the Soviet War Department; Podreskoff and Nanoff.

A statement dealing with the case published in the Moscow press, and transmitted to the “Daily Express,” affirms that correspondence between Hodgson and Preston (British Consul to Leningrad) which fell into the hands of the Soviet Secret Police during a arid, proved conclusively that espionage was being carried on. Hodgson's most active collaborator was Edward Cliarnock, Secretary to the Mission, who was successful in recruiting spies. It is declared that stolen secret plans and other documents were transmitted to Cliarnock, in return for American dollars and English clothing. The chief agents in giving information were the Proves and Korepakoff. The interviews between tlie Proves and Charnock generally occurred in some cinema, or in one of the Moscow squares, whither Cliarnock drove in a car bearing a British flag. Cliarnock is at present in London, and ho emphatically denies that any of those arrested were in any way associated with the mission. He says: “I never met one of these in my life. It is just another of the long series of scandals which has followed the withdrawal of the British Mission. We arc naturally concerned over the arrests, ns they mean almost certain death to innocent people.*’