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Show WERNER HORN 1SJIICTED HanRor. Maine. March IS. The effort ef-fort of counsel for Werner Horn to have the charge of illegal transportation transporta-tion of explosives dismissed on the J ground that his attempt to blow up the railroad bridge at Yanceboro was an affair of international relation and outside the jurisdiction of the federal court, failed at the preliminary' hearing hear-ing before United States Commission er H Reld today Commissioner Reid declined to allow al-low the defense to present evidence under his motion to dismiss and ordered or-dered the hearing to proceed on a plea of not guilty, entered formally by the court, the defense ha.tng refused to plead. The state rested after presenting the indictment. The defense offered a number of document r bearing on Horn's responsibility as a member of the German army. At the beginning of the hearing, counsel withdrew Horn's plea of not guilty and moved that he be discharged discharg-ed on the ground that the acts charged charg-ed were those of a belligerent and that the courts of the United States were not Involved. The motion declared that Horn was a first lieutenant in the Herman land-wehr land-wehr and that "under the taws of nations na-tions soldiers and members of one belligerent bel-ligerent nation may seize and destroy or capture the property of the other belligerent nation wherever found, except ex-cept in neutral territory. The motion mo-tion further set forth that. "Defendant, being a commissioned officer, cannot be regarded as a criminal crim-inal by any neutral nation; for he is innocent of any offense against international in-ternational law, even though committed commit-ted against the municipal laws of the United States. "The counts in the indictment charge the defendants with otfenses which arc necessarily connected with and part of the destruction of the bridge in the possession of the British Brit-ish government and whatever the defendant de-fendant may have done in connection with damaging the bridge by the improper im-proper use of United States territory i does not deprive him of his belligerent belliger-ent character "The counts in the indictment are cognizable onl by the low of nations and the prisoner is necessarily free from liability of punishment by the courts of the United States. |