Leopold Trepper charged today that the Polish and French secret services were working in collusion to prevent him from bringing a libel suit against Jean Rochet, head of the French counter-intelligence service. The World War II master spy, who has not been permitted to leave Poland, made the charge in a telephone interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
He said that collusion was indicated when Polish police confiscated all the documents relating to the case from Trepper’s French lawyer, Daniel Souliez-Lariviere at Warsaw Airport last Friday. Lariviere spent three days in Warsaw conferring with his client and was handed the documents by Trepper just before his intended departure. But Polish police detained him for three hours and seized the papers, the attorney reported on his return to Paris.
“I now fear the worst,” Trepper told the JTA. “Those documents could have brought about the conviction of Jean Rochet for slander. I think there is some kind of cooperation between the Polish and French secret services,” he said. Trepper, who headed the Soviet spy network known as the “Red Orchestra” in Western Europe during World War II, was accused by Rochet in a Le Monde article last month of having collaborated with the Gestapo.
Polish authorities have refused to permit him to leave the country on grounds that he “knows too much.” Trepper said that if he does get a visa his first order of business will be to appear at the preliminary hearing of the Rochet case scheduled to be held in Paris, July 13. Afterwards, he said, he would go to London for medical treatment and then probably visit Brussels to address the Association of Former Underground Fighters which has invited him. Trepper said his wife Elisabeth is remaining in Copenhagen for the time being to await the outcome of his appearance before the Central Committee.
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.
