Moses Sutch, a Jewish furrier kept in prison for thirty months on charges of having headed a pogrom against Russian Monarchists in 1929 was acquitted today by the High Court.
The charges against Sutch were that he headed the pogrom at Triochretche during the Bolshevist invasion of 1929, where 76 White Russians were killed.
During the entire period of his incarceration, Sutch was held in solitary confinement with his hands and feet manacled.
The accusation against the Jew was turned into an anti-Semitic issue by a priest named Makajeff and was taken up with vigor by the anti-Semitic press.
As a result of the disturbed situation which followed the campaign against Sutch, the Harbin Court which first tried him and found insufficient grounds for conviction, was afraid to order his release. Instead it had Sutch transferred for trial to Mukden, where after nine months the Mukden court ordered him retransferred to Harbin for another trial.
Although in the interim a change in government resulted in the application of the widest amnesty, the Monarchists were successful in their efforts to keep Sutch imprisoned.
The charges suffered complete collapse, however, at the latest trial before the High Court, where several Mongolian princes, volunteer witnesses, testified that Sutch was five hundred miles away from Triochretche when the disturbances occurred and that he was pursuing his legitimate trade of furrier at the time.
The High Court ordered Sutch’s release within ten days, unless the Monarchists lodge a new appeal against the verdict.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
