The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1911-01-08
SECRETS LEAK
FROM PRISONS
Won PIehye's Assassin Said to
Have Made Clever Escape
From Jail.
HUNDRED STARVED INMATES
FL0GGED FOR COMPLAINING
Suicide One Method of Protest
Against Want0n Cruelties
Often Inflicted.
BY GEORGE FRASER.

ST. PETERSBURG, Jan. Once in
while the lid is lifted and the out
side public gets a glimpse of the hor-
rors of the Russian prison system
and the method of the Russian secret
police. Several of these instances have
recently become public.
The newspapers the other day printed
detailed accounts of the Aogging of 100
prisoners in the Vologda Jail because
| they complained of their food.
| 1T was stated that the prison pbysi-
sian resigned because he declared many
of the prisoners were in no condition
to undergo aogging.
The prisons administration state that
there was a conspiracy among the
prisoners to rise en- massc, and that
| after the discovery of the plot the
governor of the prison gave orders for
| corporal punishment to be administered
TO two convicts. AS protest against
this three convicts severed an artery
and three others took overdoses of NOR
phia.
In consequence of further rioting
htty,nlne conylcts were ordered to be
chastlsed with rods. The minister Of
justice has ordered q strict inquiry
into the whole affair.
One of the prisoners who committed
| suicide was alleged to have been Sa-
zonof, the man who was at the bot
tom of the successful plot to assassi-
nate M. de Plehye,
Assassin s Fate a Mystery.
Despite the official prison statements
of Sazonotf's death, reyolutionaries de
ny that Sazonoff had died, and still
claim that he was never imprisoned,
but escaped Immediately after de
| Plehve S death.
NJ. de Plehve WAS killed in st.
Petersburg street by a mob on July
| 20, 1904. 1t is quite clear that the
assassin was SaZonoff, and that he was
assisted by man named Sikovsky. 1t
is also known that a man who was
found wounded at the time of the
| assassination was arrested.
The mystery began to get deep when
the police endeavored to prove that
| Sazonoff, who was generally reputed to
be the assassin, and the prisoner were
one and the same person. The
prisoner name had been given out as
Porozneff, and the following official an
nouncements give some idea of Rus
sian police ingenuity,
July 2S-Assassin caught red handed.
July 29-Identified as Porozneff
July 30-Died Of hemorrhage.
July 31-Made confession causing
| 1000 arrests.
August died unidentified.
August 4-Efforts made to keep him
alive.
August Identified again, and two
more arrests.
August 10-Identified as Sazonoff.
August 21-Identified as Matveyeff,
and death sentence committed.
August 22-Reidenti6ed as Sazonoff.
August 22-Of1icially declared not
dead.
According to the best Informed revo-
lutionary circles the truth of the mat
ter was that, although the police bad
arrested Sazonoff. the latter. by the aid
of his colleagues, was enabled to escape,
and for some time, while the police
were sending out official messages, they
were without prisoner.
Sazonoff's Clever Escape.
It was on the light of August 20
governor of the prison where Sazonoff
was confined were called by special
summons to the palace.
Ten minutes later two genda rmes
presented TO the deputy governor of the
prison an order to deliver to them the
person of Sazonoff. The order was, of
course, carefully scrutIDiZed, but as it
bore the signature of the chief of po-
lice. together with the official cipher,
the prisoner, heavily manacled, was
handed over to the two gendarmes, who
bore loaded revolvcrs in their hands
An hour later the governor of the
prison returned, hot and angry from his
FOOLS errand, only to be followed by
the chief of police, who asked to be
confronted with Sazonof1.
The order was shown to him and was
instantly pronounced to be a forgery,
Subsequently the police produced a
person whom they declared was Sa-
zonoff, and in that name the man was
sentenced to be sent to Siberia.
Unfortunately for the police, Sa.
zonoff was said to have been seen in
Geneva, Paris and London, and friends
of his declare that he has been seen
quite recently.