The story of how an officer of the former White Russian army under Gen. Chang Chung-chang had ill-treated his subordinates and eventually had met death in Shanghai at the hands of one formerly under his command was unfolded before the'
Second Special District Court last Wednesday afternoon by Yakoff Vassilievitch Biankine, alias Viadmir Gromoff, a Russian ex-soldier who was charged with having killed by stabbing with a dagger his former superior, Nicolas Petroft Petrovitch, not far' from the Manchuria Cafe on Avenue Joffre. The stabbing occurred at 10 pin. on Novembe: 3, but the victim died ten days alter the attack.
The Russian ex-soldier _readi admitted in Court that he had killed Petrovitch and that the motive of the deed was revenge because the deceased, when he was an officer in the White Russian army, a part of which moved to the north-east from Shantung after Gen. Chang Chung-chang's defeat, had been cruel to his men and responsible for the death of a number of his subordinates. To make the matter worse, the deceased recently deserted the Army and came to Shanghai, carrying with him an amount of money which had been given him to pay his men, the accused asserted.
The accused continued that he was under deceased's command and sent by his comrades to follow his former superior to Shanghai and to punish him. He first met his victim in Shanghai on November 2. The next day, the accused said, he bought a dagger, invited his victim to a restaurant, and he paid the bill. Leaving the restaurant, he seized his victim from behind and, producing his weapon, stabbed him in the back three times. His victim did not offer any resistance and he then fled: He was arrested on Tuesday in a Chinese house off Rue Brenier de Montmorand.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.