SHOOTING OF RUSSIAN PREMIER

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 75, 19 September 1911, Page 5

SHOOTING OF RUSSIAN PREMIER

WATCHING THE BULLETIN'S. Rv Cable—Press Association—Copyright. St. Petersburg, September 17. Crowds of all classes have assembled at the hospital, and are watching the bulletins with regard to M. Stolypin. Prayers were offered in all the churches. It is believed that M. Stolypin was aware of the existence of a plot at Kieff against him, and when Bogroff approached, M. Stolypin turned as if to greet him, and Bogroff then fired. M. Stolypin shows symptoms of peritonitis. An operation was performed, and the bullet removed, PREMIER'S CONDITION SERIOUS. BOGROFFS TRAITOROUS WORK. STATEMENTS BY THE ASSASSIN. Received 18, 9.20 p.m. St. Petersburg, September 18. M. Stolypin bore the operation well. At midnight a bulletin stated that peritoneal symptoms continue, and his condition is serious. Bogroff, while a student at Kieff University, did traitor's work. He caused the arrest of many students'. Anarchists, on discovering his treachery, gave him the choice of assassinating M. Stolypin or of himself being murdered. The authorities regarded Bogroff as a valuable secret agent. I Bogroff's relatives and immediate friends have been arrested. The prisoner will be court-martialled on Wednesday. At the preliminary en-; quiry, Bogroff stated that he had long' waited a favorable opportunity to kill M. Stolypin. His courage failed him the first time. He saw a chance on the second opportunity to draw a revolver 1 from his pocket under cover of a programme, and fired, hoping to escape during the excitement. Some of Bogroff's teeth were knocked out, and he also received a sabre cut on the head. He expressed regret at wounding a musieiaa. • EUGENE AZEFFS DOUBLE LIFE. Yesterday's cables stated enquiry revealed that Bogroff, like the notorious Azeff, combined terrorising methods with detective service. He was employed as an agent of the political police at Kieff for two years, and was specially assigned to protect high personages. * The double life of Eugene Azeff, as told by the English press, is astounding. For years he organised revolutionary conspiracies, while at the same time revealing them to the police, who paid him large sums; and he might apparently have continued this fearful occupation" for all time had not someone betrayed him to the revolutionaries. Azeff is said to be a Jew. On the one hand he had control of the revolutionaries' funds, and his free use of the same is said to have at times aroused the suspicion of his dupes; on the other hand he drew, as agent of the secret police, a salary of £4OOO a year. At one moment a promoter of asssasiiialious. at the, next a hunter of assassins, Azeff is sViid to have been in both capacities always calm and selfpossessed, attired in the height of fashion, always full of energy, will ami resouvcefuliifss. ••The Borgias." says one of the Terrorist leaders at Geneva,' "were almost angels when compared with Azeff. He has massacred at least 151)0 of us, and sent three times that mihibcr to living death in Siberia." Treacherous to his comrades, the revolutionaries, Azeff seems to have beeu also treacherous to his employers, the police. Evidently he did not tell them all. For instance, he i> credited with having planned the murders of M. de Plehve and Die Grand Duke Sergius. and his connection with both these' crimes cannot have been unknown to the Russian police. The general ■assumption at St. Petersburg is that they paid' him mainly, if not exclusively, to give information of plots aimed at the life of the Czar, and were indifferent to what he did or instigated in other directions. It seems clear that even after he entered the service of the police he remained - to a large extent genuinely in sympathy with the revolutionary movement. Nowhere but in the peculiar conditions of Russia could such a chameleon-like character flourish. And what of the police system that maintains such creatures? The Russian police maintain that they cannot detect Terrorist plots without information from within; but declare that they do not tolerate such agents being active within the revolutionary circle. "We cannot frustrate dastardly plots," an official of the police department explains, "unless we contrive to obtain timely information about them. This involves the employment of individuals who are members of the circles where these plots are fabricated, and this necessity we consider an unavoidable evil. But connivance at crime we vigorously eliminate from our system in and practice. A reason of State cannot justify lawlessness; therefore, if any agent perpetrates p.-:™,,. he will be dealt with as a criminal."