List of people convicted of treason

This is a list of people convicted of treason.

Some countries, such as the U.S., have a high constitutional hurdle to conviction for treason, while many countries, especially absolute monarchies and dictatorships, have less stringent definitions.

Armenia

* Meruzhan Artzruni, Lord Prince of Vaspurakan (? - 369), for conspiring with one of the Great Persian Kings, Shapur II against his liege-lord, Armenian King Arshak II, whom he betrayed to Persia. He was captured by Arshak's son King Pap and executed.

Austria

* Count Lajos Batthyány de Németújvár, for involvement in the 1848 Hungarian Revolution

Austria-Hungary

* Nedeljko Čabrinović, for assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand
* Vaso Čubrilović, for assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand
* Veljko Čubrilović, for assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand
* Dragutin Dimitrijević, for assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand
* Trifko Grabež, for assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand
* Danilo Ilić, for assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand
* Cvjetko Popović, for assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand
* Gavrilo Princip, for assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand
* Nazario Sauro, for fighting for Italy in the First World War

Canada

* Louis Riel, Métis leader who opposed Canada's expansion into the west.
* Kanao Inouye, Kamloops-born Sergeant in the Imperial Japanese army in World War II, for killing eight Canadian prisoners of war captured at the Battle of Hong Kong.

China

* Zhou Fohai
* Chen Gongbo

Republic of Congo

* Pascal Lissouba, former President of the Republic of Congo

Czechoslovakia

* Karel Čurda

Denmark

* Henrik Kauffmann

East Germany

* Werner Teske

England

:"For those after 1707, see Great Britain and United Kingdom."

* Anthony Babington, for leading the Babington Plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I
* Anne Boleyn, wife of King Henry VIII
* Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham, who was implicated in the Main Plot against the rule of James I of England.
* Charles I, who was executed by Parliament for treason, on the grounds that he had waged war against the people. When his son Charles II regained the throne, he had most of the people responsible for his father's execution prosecuted for treason themselves, as killing the King is treason.
* Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, who led a failed coup d'état against Queen Elizabeth I.
* Guy Fawkes, for involvement in the Gunpowder Plot
* Dafydd ap Gruffydd, for revolting against King Edward I
* Catherine Howard, wife of King Henry VIII
* Robert Kett, for leading the Norfolk Rebellion in 1549
* Mary I of Scotland, for her part in the Babington Plot
* Thomas More, Lord Chancellor, for refusing to accept Henry VIII as Supreme Governor of the Church of England
* Sir Walter Raleigh
* Lord Russell
* William Stanley
* William Thomas, member of Edward VI's privy council, implicated in Wyatt's rebellion
* Chidiock Tichborne, for involvement in the Babington Plot
* William Wallace, for leading the Scottish independence movement against King Edward I
* Perkin Warbeck, for pretending and leading a rebellion against King Henry VII

Fiji

* George Speight, for plotting the Fiji coup of 2000

France

* Robert Brasillach
* Marcel Bucard
* Louis-Ferdinand Céline
* Joseph Darnand, for leading the Vichy French Milice.
* Émile Dewoitine (Plane industrialist; 20 years forced labour sentence for intelligence with the enemy and attack on state security)
* Pierre Laval, for being Prime Minister of Vichy France.
* Michel Ney
* Henri Philippe Pétain
* Marie Antoinette
* Louis XVI

Germany

* Adolf Hitler, for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923
* Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst in 1943 for their involvement in the anti Nazi White Rose movement.
* Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, for the attempted assassination of Hitler in the July 20 plot in 1944

Great Britain

:"For those before 1707, see England and Scotland. For those after 1800, see United Kingdom"
* Archibald Cameron of Locheil, for his part in the 1745 Jacobite rising
* William Maxwell, 5th Earl of Nithsdale, for supporting the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715
* Thomas Paine, [cite book | last = Conway | first = Moncure Daniel | title = The Life of Thomas Paine | origyear = 1892 | url = http://www.thomaspaine.org/bio/ConwayLife.html | accessdate = 2006-07-06 | edition = | year = 1893 | publisher = Knickerbocker Press | location = New York | pages = p. 375] for publishing anti-British revolutionary literature
* Charles Radclyffe, for supporting the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715

Greece

* Georgios Hatzanestis

Hungary

* Imre Nagy, Prime Minister of Hungary, for leading the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
* Count Fidel Palffy
* László Rajk
* Sándor Szűcs, international footballer, for defecting the country

Israel

*Mordechai Vanunu, for revealing details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986.

Japan

* Kotoku Shusui, Japanese anarchist
* Daisuke Namba, Japanese left-wing activist
* Ozaki Hotsumi, journalist and Soviet agent (nominally convicted under Peace Preservation Law)

Kenya

* Hezekiah Ochuka, Kenya airforce soldier, for conspiring to overthrow the government of Daniel Moi in 1982

Kuwait

* Alaa Hussein Ali, for heading the Iraqi puppet government during the Gulf War

Netherlands

* Anton Mussert, for leading the Dutch puppet regime under Nazi occupation.

New Zealand

*Hamiora Pere, for fighting against the British government in Te Kooti's War.

Norway

* Vidkun Quisling, for being Minister President of Nazi-occupied Norway during World War II. The word 'quisling' now means 'traitor'.
* Arne Treholt Norwegian diplomat, turned by the KGB

Poland

For the betrayal of General Stefan Rowecki to Gestapo:
* Eugeniusz Swierczewski (“Genes”), executed 1944
* Ludwik Kalkstein ("Hanka"), protected by Gestapo during the war, emigrated to France in 1982
* Blanka Kaczorowska (“Sroka”), as above, emigrated to France in 1971

Russia

* Mikhail Shein

cotland

:"For those after 1707, see Great Britain and United Kingdom."

* Robert Baillie, for involvement in the Rye House Plot
* William Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie, for leading the Raid of Ruthven on King James VI
* Murdoch Stewart, 2nd Duke of Albany
* Patrick Stewart, Earl of Orkney, for usurping King James VI on the Orkney Islands

oviet Union

* Oleg Penkovsky
* Pyotr Popov
* Adolf Tolkachev, worked with CIA, executed 1986
* Gennady Varenik KGB, worked for CIA
* Andrey Vlasov
* Genrikh Yagoda

pain

* Camilo Torres Tenorio, for leading the independence movement in Ecuador
* Francisco Xavier Mina, for fighting against the Spanish government in the Mexican War of Independence.

weden

* Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt, attempted to owrthrow the guardian-government of king Gustav IV Adolf with Russian military assistance.
* Johann Patkul, protested the land-recovery project of Charles XI of Sweden and, when unsuccessful, sided with Augustus the Strong and tried to wrest Livonia from Sweden.
* Magdalena Rudenschöld, for taking part in the Armfelt-conspiracy.

witzerland

* Jean-Louis Jeanmaire, sentenced to 18 years of prison (released after 12 for good behavior) for leaking information to the Soviet KGB.

Turkey

*Abdullah Öcalan, life sentence (orginally death penalty) for trying to establish a Kurdish State

United Kingdom

:"For those before 1801, see England, Scotland, and Great Britain."

* John Amery, for trying to recruit soldiers and broadcast propaganda for Nazi Germany.
* Michael Bettaney, for passing MI5 secrets to the Soviet Union
* Roger Casement, for negotiating with Germany to provide arms to Irish revolutionaries during the First World War for use in the Irish Easter 1916 rising; hanged in August 1916.
* Participants in the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland. Patrick Pearse, Thomas J. Clarke, Thomas MacDonagh, Joseph Mary Plunkett, Edward (Ned) Daly, William Pearse, Michael O'Hanrahan, John MacBride, Éamonn Ceannt, Michael Mallin, Cornelius Colbert, Seán Heuston, Seán Mac Diarmada, James Connolly, and Thomas Kent were shot by firing squad in May 1916.
* William Joyce, alias 'Lord Haw-Haw', for broadcasting Nazi propaganda to the United Kingdom during World War II
* Arthur Thistlewood, John Brunt, William Davidson, James Ings and Richard Tidd, participants of the 1820 Cato Street Conspiracy

United States

* Robert Henry Best, convicted of treason on April 16 1948 and served a life sentence
* John Brown, convicted of treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia
* Iva Toguri D'Aquino, who is frequently identified with "Tokyo Rose." {perjured testimony}. Subsequently pardoned by President Gerald Ford
* Governor Thomas Dorr 1844, convicted of treason against the state of Rhode Island; see Dorr Rebellion; released 1845; civil rights restored 1851; verdict annulled 1854.
* Mildred Gillars, "Axis Sally," convicted of treason on March 8, 1949, served 12 years of a 10- to 30-year prison sentence
* Tomoya Kawakita, sentenced to death for treason, but eventually released by President John F. Kennedy to be deported to Japan
* Martin James Monti, United States Army Air Force pilot, convicted of treason for defecting to the Waffen SS in 1944

Zimbabwe

* Ndabaningi Sithole, for conspiring to kill Robert Mugabe

Footnotes