Kamo (Bolshevik) - Captures and Trials

Captures and Trials

"esigned to death, absolutely calm. On my grave there should already be grass growing six feet high. One can't escape death forever. One must die some day. But I will try my luck again. Try any way of escape. Perhaps we shall once more have the laugh over our enemies...I am in irons. Do what you like. I am ready for anything."
- Note from Kamo to fellow prisoner in 1912 while awaiting the death penalty.

After his purchase in Bulgaria, Kamo traveled to Berlin and delivered a letter from Lenin to a prominent Bolshevik, Dr. Yakov Zhitomirsky, asking the doctor for medical assistance to treat Kamo's still injured eye. Lenin had been hoping to help the man who had successfully executed the robbery, but unintentionally turned Kamo over to a double agent. Zhitomirsky had been secretly working as an agent of the Russian government and quickly informed the Okhrana about his encounter with Kamo. The Okhrana then asked the Berlin police to arrest Kamo. When they did so, they found a forged Austrian passport and a suitcase with 200 detonators, which he was planning to use in another large bank robbery.

After being arrested in Berlin, Kamo received a note from Krasin through his lawyer Oscar Kohn telling Kamo to feign insanity so that he would be declared unfit to stand trial. To demonstrate his insanity, Kamo refused food, tore his clothes, tore out his hair, attempted suicide by hanging himself, slashed his wrists, and ate his own excrement. In order to make sure that Kamo was not faking his condition, German doctors stuck pins under his nails, struck him in the back with a long needle, and burned him with hot irons, but he did not break his act. After all of these tests, the chief doctor of the Berlin asylum wrote in June 1909 that "there is no foundation to the belief that is feigning insanity. He is without doubt mentally ill, is incapable of appearing before a court, or of serving sentence. It is extremely doubtful that he can completely recover."

In 1909, Kamo was extradited to a Russian prison where he continued to feign insanity. In April 1910, Kamo was tried for his role in the Tiflis robbery. At trial, Kamo continued to act insane by ignoring the proceedings and instead openly feeding a pet bird that he had snuck into the proceedings in his shirt. The trial was suspended while officials examined Kamo's sanity. The court eventually found that he was sane when he committed the Tiflis robbery, but was presently mentally ill and should be confined until he recovered.

In August 1911, after feigning insanity for more than three years, Kamo escaped from the psychiatric ward of the Tiflis prison by sawing through his window bars and climbing down a homemade rope.

Kamo later discussed his experiences at feigning insanity for over three years:

"What can I tell you? They threw me about, hit me over the legs and the like. One of the men forced me to look into the mirror. There I saw − not the reflection of myself, but rather of some thin, ape-like man, gruesome and horrible looking, grinding his teeth. I thought to myself, 'Maybe I've really gone mad!' It was a terrible moment, but I regained my bearings and spat upon the mirror. You know I think they liked that....I thought a great deal:'Will I survive or will I really go mad?' That was not good. I did not have faith in myself, see?..., of course, know their business, their science. But they do not know the Caucasians. Maybe every Caucasian is insane, as far as they are concerned. Well, who will drive whom mad? Nothing developed. They stuck to their guns and I to mine. In Tiflis, they didn't torture me. Apparently they thought that the Germans can make no mistakes."

After escaping, Kamo met up with Lenin in Paris. Kamo was distressed to hear that a "rupture had occurred" between Lenin, Bogdanov, and Krasin. Kamo told Lenin about his arrest and how he had simulated insanity while in prison. After leaving Paris, Kamo eventually met up with Krasin and planned another armed robbery. Kamo was caught before the robbery took place and was put on trial in Tiflis for his exploits including the Tiflis bank robbery. This time while imprisoned, Kamo did not feign insanity and was given four death sentences.

Seemingly doomed to death, Kamo then had the good luck along with other prisoners to have his sentence commuted to a long prison term as part of the celebrations of the Romanov dynasty tricentennial. Kamo was released from prison after the February Revolution in 1917.