BRUTAL MURDER.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 October 1919, Page 5

BRUTAL MURDER.

AN APPALLING STORY. SOLDIERS ATTACK PRISONERS. TERRIBLE SCENE IN MUNICH. By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received Oct. 30, 7.55 p.m. London, Oct. 28. An appalling story was told auring the trial at Munich of four soldiers charged with the murder of young meu arrested in May. The victims were members of a Catholic Recreation Club, who broke martial law regarding holding an assemblage. They were arrested and marched through the streets. They were strongly guarded from the populace, though the Spartacists demonstrated angrily. A shot was fired and a soldier killed. Then the crowd surged through the courtyard of a palace used as a temporary prison and fired several shots. Seven prisoners were killed before the rest were hustled into cells.

Eight or ten soldiers, headed by v Muller and Ma'kowski, followed and ordered the nineteen survivors to lie face downward. They were then shot at with revolvers. Muller smashed about with a sword and a bayonet in a demoniacal fury, while the soldiers pranced on the prostrate bodies, intoxicated with the thirst for blood. Only five of the prisoners survived.

Muller and Makowski were sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment, another prisoner received one year, while :ft fourth was acquitted.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.