KOUTEFOFF IN PRISON

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 930, 25 March 1930, Page 9

KOUTEFOFF IN PRISON

SENSATIONAL DISCLOSURE BY FRENCH PAPER KIDNAPPED GENERAL United P.A.—By Telegraph—Copyright Reed. 1 p.m. PARIS, Monday. The newspaper * “Liberte” in a special edition makes the sensational declaration that General Koutepoff has been a prisoner in Moscow since February 27. He says he was hitherto silent at the express wish of the Prefect of Police in order not to interfere with the investigations. He considers now that he is freed of his obligations because in a few hours France will know in detail the whole circumstances of the kidnapping. “If I give the news before the police, I asked to be excused, because I consider it my duty,” he said. He says he was taken aboard a Soviet vessel on the Normandy coast close to the town of Houlgate. On arrival at Moscow every means, including torture, was used to extract the names of White Russians in Moscow,. These would then be arrested and executed. The Soviet would then announce a vast conspiracy against the Soviet, alleging complicity of the French Government. The plan failed, because the kidnapping was known all over the w^rld. “Liberte” concludes: Koutepoff is imprisoned at Loubianskaia prison. He was alive at least six days ago. The only hope is the French Government to act forthwith. General Koutepoff, a Russian hero of the Russo-Japanese and of the Great War, succeeded the Grand Duke Nicholas as leader of the Russian emigres and head of the anti-Soviet movement outside Russia. On a Sunday in February he attended divine service at the Russian Church in Paris and then left for his home in the Latin Quarter. He went out again a few minutes later to go to a Russian ex-officers’ club—and from that moment vanished. Weeks of patient search, during which no fewer than 80 different clues were followed up, left the whereabouts of the general utterly unknown.