Defendants Missing

When Prussian-educated Dictator General John Metaxas last month smashed a piddling anti-Fascist revolt among dirty, liberty-loving peasants on the island of Crete (TIME, Aug. 8), he celebrated by announcing that he had become "Premier for Life." Some of the 400 peasants who seized the town of Canea, capital of Crete, surrendered when the Greek Navy arrived carrying two regiments of Greek soldiers. Others, including 42 known rebel leaders, escaped to Crete's rugged mountains, where they are still at large.

Red-baiting Dictator Metaxas, unable to lay his hands on the rebels, last week did the next best thing. He court-martialed the 42 leaders in absentia. Sentences: death for four, including former Minister of National Economy Aristomenis Mitsotakis, nephew of Greece's late Republican firebrand Eleutherios Venizelos; life imprisonment for three; one to 25 years' imprisonment for 35 others. As a special inducement the condemned men were informed that if they gave themselves up in a month they would have the right to appeal their sentences.

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