FROM DEVIL'S ISLAND.
ADVENTURES OF AN ESCAPEE. LONDON, March 19. Arrested as a vagrant by a village policeman in Luxemburg, and thrust across the frontier into France, a wanderer has proved to be an escapee from Devil's Island. If he had reached France three months earlier he would have been returned to Cayenne, but in the meantime transportation nas been abolished. He is the 42-year-old van Valesten, who comes from a good Dutch family. As a medical student of 24, he met a Turkish secret service agent, who, he alleged, enlisted him as a spy. In 1921, he went to Syria to assassinate General Gouraud, commander of the French Army of Occupation. He was to' have received £20,000 for the job, but the attempt failed, and he was arrested and condemned to death. The sentence was commuted to hard labour for life at Cayenne. In 1925, he escaped to Brazil, where he lived for two years before being arrested and returned to the _penal settlement. He escaped again in 1933 and made his way to Rumania, where he' wandered across Europe.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS19370323.2.52
Bibliographic details
Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 69, 23 March 1937, Page 7
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181FROM DEVIL'S ISLAND. Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 69, 23 March 1937, Page 7
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