Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-03-28 | Page 5 | Government Closes Fire Bomb Cases

GOVERNMENT CLOSES PI BGMB GASES Evidence Shows Manufacture Manufac-ture of 250 Shells on German Steamer. NEW YORK, March 27. After a statement had been admitted iu evidence evi-dence that 250 shells for fire bombs had been manufactured hi twelve days on board a German merchant steamship tied up at Hoboken, N. J., the government govern-ment late today closed its case against Captain Charles von Kloist aud five other Germans, on trial for conspiracy to destroy vessels carrying munitions from American ports to the entente allies. al-lies. Counsel for the defendants moved for dismissal, but Judge Van Fleet, presiding, declared there was "ample evidence of conspiracy if the jury should find it sufficient. Captain von Kleist then was called to the stand, and told of having been approached in March, 1915, by Dr. Walter Wal-ter T. Scheele, who informed him he "wanted a pood man to go into the fertilizer business in Hoboken." "Scheele said to me," the witness testified, " 'Are vou German?' I said, 'I guess so.J lie said, 'Are you an American1?' I said, 'Yes,' and he asked, 'Do you like Germany?' T. said, ( Yes, it's my old fatherland; I like it as much as you do.' He Baid, 'You will do " Dr. Scheele, who was indicted with Von Kleist and the others, fled from Hoboken when the alleged bomb plot was disclosed and now is believed to be in Mexico. Captain von Kleist denied that he had any criminal knowledge of the bomb making, but admitted that when Dr. Scheele failed to pay pome notes he had given him, he (Von Kleist). sought an interview with Wolf von Tgel, an attache of the German embassy, because Scheele had told him Von1 Igel would pay. Von Tgel recently returned to Germany with Count von BcrnstorfT. Counsel for the defendants told the jury they would attempt to show that their clients had no guilty knowledge of the uses to which the fire bombs were to be put. Captain Thomas J. Tunney, in charge of the bomb squad of the ! New York police department, one of , the last witnesses of the government, testified, however, that Vou Kleist, in a statement to him, implicated all the defendants. He also said Von Kleist had told him about two suit cases filled with bombs that presumably were to be taken to New Orleans by two men.