KARUNIDZE FREED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 893, 10 February 1930, Page 9

KARUNIDZE FREED

SENSATIONAL END TO FORGERY TRIAL RUSSIAN NOTE CONSPIRACY

BERLIN, Sunday. There was a surprising end to the trial of Karunidze and others, who were charged with forging Russian notes. Three of the defendants were acquitted and the court ordered the proceedings against the remainder to be abandoned. It declared that the defendants had been actuated by unselfish political motives and were entitled to the amnesty granted to political prisoners on the occasion of President Hindenburg’s 80th birthday. The Public Prosecutor is to ask for a new trial. The newspapers express amazement. They say it is not easy to contemplate the conclusions to be drawn from the verdict and ask whether political elements in Germany are at liberty to counterfeit currency for the purpose of overturning a Government. Professor Shalva Karunidze, a compatriot of Sada Thieraschwili, was on trial, along with six Germans, on a charge of conspiracy to forge masses of Russian currency notes in the hope of causing an economic crash in Russia and overthrowing the Soviet by a rush attack. This suggested that the real prize was the control of tho Georgian oil wells. Karunidze protested that the only motive was to free Georgia. Rasputin’s former secretary, Baron Von Steinheil, residing in Paris, is allegedly involved, but an extradition order was refused. In connection with the forged notes in Berlin, Fischer, a Communist whom the police want, disappeared on the day on which the bank learned that certain notes sent to America were forgeries.