DIABOLICAL CRIME.

Taihape Daily Times, 29 January 1919, Page 5

DIABOLICAL CRIME.

■ — f o) BLOWING UP OF AN ITALIAN DREADNOUGHT.

LONDON, January 26,

The “Daily Chronicle’s” Milan correspondent reports that startling disclosures were made at a court-martial at Genoa for the trial of half a dozen persons concerned in blowing up the Dreadnought Leonardo Da Vinci in the roadstead at Taranto by a . clock machine in the magazine, on August 3, 1916, with the loss of 254 of the 'Crew.

The originator of the plot Avas Cavaliere Gaeta, Austro-Hungarian Consul at Naples. It is alleged that the plotters include Arconte, deputy-chief of the torpedo defence service at Madalena, and Vriscuolo, secretary to the Leonardo da Vinci’s commander. Austria entered into a definite contract Avith the conspirators in February, 1916, assigning half a million storing as the price of blood, including £200,000 to the arch-plotter. Two principal fiends gained access to the battleship on the pretext of selling war loan bonds.

'Apart from the depositions of the witnesses, damming evidence against the prisoners was derived from documents from the Austrian espionage offices in Zurich and sold to the Italian Government. The documents are in the hand-writing of the notorious Dr. Mayer, head of the Austro-Hungarian spy department in Switzerland. They contain a minute description of the accused- traitors and their movements, and those of their accomplices who fled from justice, together with details of the monej's paid them for this and other diabolical crimes perpetrated in Italy.