TORTURE ALLEGATIONS.

Shannon News, 23 November 1928, Page 3

TORTURE ALLEGATIONS.

MEXICAN COURT THRILLED.

(“Sun” Special). MEXICO CITY, Nov. 16. Sickening details of tortures to which he alleges he was subjected by the police were told in court by Jose ioral, who is being tried for the assassination of President Obregon. .Toral has already admitted committing the crime. Reminiscent of the horrors of Lie Spanish .Inquisition, the dramatic charges, which he illustrated with his own drawings, brought the t.iial to a sudd'H climax. lie said lie was put on a rack, hung up by the thumbs, and subjected to other tortures.. _ The young religious fanatic, his dam eves blazing and his heavily sensitive mouth atwist with intentness, suddenly flung his amazing accusations at the police during his cross-examination. To nil said his body was bent on a jack after his anest, that he .was strung up by the thumbs, suspended by his chest,' hung by his waist, starved for three days, and subjected to unprintable indignities. The tiny courtroom, surrounded by crowds unable to enter, thrilled to his recital, but Toral, conducting his own defence, and seemingly convinced that he will soon face the,firing squad, had yet another thrill in store for them. He was once a draftsman, and lie thrust before the eyes of the middleclass workers and peasant type of countrymen on the jury a series of gruesome drawings depicting his alleged tortures. They were blue prints made from his own illustrations, and showed him hanging by the thumbs. “These tortures,” Toral said, “took place on the night- of the assassination.’^ He said that the police stretched him ' across an improvised rack, consisting of a barber’s chair and a window sill, in their first efforts to make him confess that others had aided him. Toral suid lie supplied details, and he told the jurors that- when he was later strung up by his thumbs one of the cords slipped, and left him hanging by one thumb.