Kidnaping, C.O.D.

Kidnapping, C.O.D.

A U.S. court-martial in Salzburg last week convicted an American corporal and a sergeant of kidnaping. Corporal Paul Abel got 20 years and Sergeant John Frankey got 15 years after they confessed that they had taken $653 from the Russians to abduct a gardener named Oswald Eder, a double spy who served both the Russians and the Allies (TIME, Feb. 20).

The investigation of the Eder case uncovered more guilt than Abel's and Fran-key's. Their battalion, the 796th Military Police, has 600 men. More than 100 knew about the kidnaping; 20 of them had been approached by those who wanted Eder kidnaped. None reported the proposition or the kidnaping to U.S. authorities. The 796th has many black-marketeers, some, called the "three-to-two boys," who lend money on a basis of $300 returned for every $200 advanced. Three-quarters of the MPs in the battalion are under 21, and most of them have been subject to the corrupting influence of military occupation for more than two years.

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