CAPTAIN WILLIAM T. TURNER, R.N.R.
Commander of the R.M.S. Lusitania
(Photo from Underwood & Underwood)
STAHL INDICTED FOR PERJURY.
In The New York Times of June 19 appeared the following report of the Grand Jury's indictment of Stahl on a charge of perjury and the announcement that the Federal investigation will be continued:
Gustav Stahl, the alleged German reservist, who made an affidavit that he had seen guns on board the Lusitania on the day before she sailed on her last voyage, was indicted on a charge of perjury by the Federal Grand Jury yesterday. The perjury charge is based on his testimony before the Grand Jury, during which examination he repeated that he had seen the guns on the Lusitania as set forth in his affidavit filed by the German Embassy in Washington and now in the hands of the State Department.
The name of Paul Koenig, who, it is said, was known to Stahl as Stemler, and who is the chief of the secret service of the Hamburg-American Line, is mentioned by name in the indictment. The indictment sets forth that on June 10 there was pending before the Grand Jury an investigation concerning Koenig and others and that Stahl was among the witnesses called in the course of that investigation. It then goes on to say that Stahl testified in substance and to the effect that on April 30 he went aboard the Lusitania, then with one Leach, and that while on the vessel he saw four guns on one of the decks of the steamship, two forward and two aft, and all mounted on wooden blocks and covered with leather. The indictment further charges that at the time of so swearing Stahl did not believe it to be true that he had been on board the Lusitania and had seen the four guns.
The indictment, in conclusion, charges that there were no guns upon the decks of the Lusitania on April 30. "Therefore," the Grand Jury charges, "that Stahl, after taking an oath before a competent officer to truly depose and testify, did willfully, knowingly and feloniously and contrary to his said oath, depose and state material matters which were not true and which he did not then believe to be true, and thereby did commit willful and corrupt perjury against the peace of the United States and their dignity and contrary to the form of the statute of the United States in such cases made and provided."
Stahl will be arraigned before Judge Russell in the criminal branch of the United States District Court on Monday. He is now in the Tombs in default of $10,000 bail. Should he be convicted of perjury he may be sentenced to prison for five years or fined $10,000, or both.
The indictment of Stahl does not mean that the Government's investigation of the Lusitania affidavits, and the way in which they were procured, is at an end. On the other hand it is proceeding vigorously. Three witnesses, all Government officials, were before the Grand Jury yesterday in connection with the case. Heinz Hardenberg, who was found in Cincinnati a week ago today and brought here to be examined by the Grand Jury, has not yet appeared before that body, although the Government agents insist they can produce him when his testimony is desired.
THE NEBRASKAN CASE.
An Associated Press dispatch dated at London on May 26, 1915, reported: