on March 15
It has now been definitely settled that Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, H.M. Ambassador to China, Britain, Germany, Poland and Japan Mentioned as Interested in Separatist Movement Moscow, Mar. 2.
HE Soviet Prosecutor-General, M. Andrew Vishinsky, to-day brought formal charges against 21 political prisoners on trial for their lives here before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court and read portions of written confessions alleged to have been signed by a number of the defendants prior to the beginning of the trial, Twenty of the 21 prisoners earlier had confessed their guilt on charges ranging from a twenty-year-old plot to assassinate M. Josef Stalin and M. Lenin to a conspiracy to overthrow the Soviet regime in several provinces for the benefit of foreign Powers.
M. Nicholas Krestinsky, former Ambassador to Germany and Assistant Foreign. Commissar, was the only defendant to plead. not guilty.
"When first arrested," he said dramatically, "I spoke falsely of my own free will because I was convinced it was useless to deny my guilt except in open court."
The restricted audience, of about 200, including a number of foreign plomats, tensely heard M. Krestinsky deny his guilt and frequently peered at a curtained balcony above the judges' bench in the belief that M. Josef Stalif might be watching ihe proceedings.
The prosecution alleged that all defendants as well as M. Leon Trotsky, exiled Russian revolutionary, kad been involved in a gigantic plot against the Soviet regime. This plot was said to have included plans to assassinate Soviet leaders, including several men under medical care, a conspiracy to partition the country in collaboration with foreign Powers and plans to seize power and set up a capitalist regime throughout Russia, alleged to have admitted sabotage against Soviet finances,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.