OGPU BUNGLED

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1021, 11 July 1930, Page 11

OGPU BUNGLED

KOUTEPOFF KILLED BY HIS KIDNAPPERS DISCLOSURE FROM RUSSIA United. P.A. — By Telegraph Copyright Reed. 10.5 a.m. PARIS, Thursday. “Le Journal” quotes a Russian newspaper story that General Koutepoff, who disappeared in January, died from an overdose of chloroform administered by his kidnappers, who were the junior officers of the Ogpu (Russian Secret Police). It is stated the kidnappers were shot when they returned for their bungling business and failing to deliver Koutepoff alive.

General Koutepoff, regarded as a leader of the colony of Russian emigres in Paris, has been missing since Sunday, January 26. Fears were entertained by his compatriots as to his fate. He was to have attended a memorial service at the Russian Church in the Rue Mademoiselle. The general left his house in the Rue Rousselet at half-past ten. He was not seen again. For some years General Koutepoff had been head of the organisation of Russian ex-servicemen in Paris, the purposes of which were primarily benevolent, but also political. He enjoyed a. degree of authority greater than any other Russian general among the military section of the Russian emigres. As head of that organisation he was particularly disliked by the Bolsheviks, who believed that the organisation maintained a certain amount of communication with Russia. In consequence of this ho had been advised to refrain from coin.** out un-

attended, and had followed the advice until a few months previously, when he protested that it was absurd. In March “La Liberty” announced that General Koutepoff was taken on board a Soviet vessel off the Normandy coast, close to the town of Houlgate. On his arrival in Moscow every means, including torture, was used to extract the names of the "White Russian spies in Moscow. These were then to be arrested and executed. “La Liberte” concluded by saying that General Koutepoff was imprisoned in the Loubianskaia prison, and was then alive.