Jeremy Thorpe

Associated Press

Ex-Liberal leader

in Britain on trial

for plot to murder

• New York Times

LONDON-Jeremy Thorpe, who just a few years ago was one of the major figures on the British political scene, went on trial yesterday on charges of having conspired to murder a former male model who claims to have had a homosexual relationship with him.

Thorpe, 50, a former leader of the Liberal party, was stony-faced as he sat in the dock at the historic Old Bailey, an oak-paneled courtroom. His only public comment all day was a firm "not guilty," after a court official had read the charges, which could bring him life imprisonment.

The trial, which is expected to last two or three months, has attracted great attention here. Excited spectators, including American tourists, lined up for seats.

The trial's opening day was taken up largely with discussion of preliminary motions. It was to have been last month, but was postponed, at Thorpe's request, so he could run in the parliamentary election last week.

After a campaign in which the pending criminal charges were a major though generally unspoken-issue, he was decisively de-

feated, losing the seat he had held 20 years. By yesterday, the last shreds of his characteristic jauntiness were gone; he spent most of the day staring into the middle distance from his chair.

The selection of the jury took just 20 minutes, with Sir Joseph Cantley, the trial judge, asking the candidates only one question: whether they had read either of two books about the case.

Thorpe and the three other men are accused of plotting the murder of Norman Scott, to end his politically embarrassing statements about a love affair he said he had with the Liberal leader in the early 1960s. Thorpe is also charged with having incited one codefendant to commit the murder.

Scott, 39, was not, in fact, killed. The man who said he was hired to commit the murder testified at the preliminary hearing last fall that he changed his mind at the last minute, and shot Scott's dog instead.

Besides Thorpe, the accused in the case are David Holmes, a banker and former deputy treasurer of the Liberal party, and two businessmen, John Le Mesurier and George Deakin.