NO EXECUTION

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 303, 22 December 1943, Page 5

NO EXECUTION

FRENCHMAN'S FATE Germans Heed Warning By National Committee N.Z. Pres?s Rec. 11 a.m. LONDON, Dec 21. The French Committee of National Liberation has announced that Germany has agreed to defer the execution of Lieutenant Masse, son of the Residential General in Tunisia, General Masse. According to Vichy radio Lieutenant Masse, a prisoner of war, who escaped and was recaptured, was to have been executed by the Germans to-day. M. Henry Frenay. an ex-under-ground leader, who is now member for prisoners on the French National Committee of Liberation, broadcast a warning to the German Government that, if Lieutenant Masse was executed the committee reserved the right to take all the necessary measures for the exemplary punishment of all those responsible for the flagrant breach of international law and humanitarian principles. M. Frenay pointed out that the Geneva Convention, to which Germany subscribed, forbade the death sentence in the case of an escaped prisoner of war. He offered to exchange a German officer for Lieutenant Masse. The French Committee of Liberation also announced the arrest of Pierre Tixier de Vignancourt, formerly director of information under the Vichy Administration, and Andre Albert, former Radical Deputy, who recently arrived in North Africa from France. With Flandin, Marcel Peyrouten and Boisson, who are already under arrest, they are accused of treason.

M. Marcel Peyrouten was Vichy Ambassador to the Argentine just prior to his appointment as Governor-General of Algeria, after the assassination of Darlan. His appointment caused a great deal of protest from the Fighting French and certain other Allied sections, who distrusted his politics. M. Pierre Boisson was Governor-General of French West Africa when the Allies landed at Casablanca at the end of 1942, a post which he had held since September, 1940. M. Pierre E. Flandin, former leader of the Left Republican party, held ministerial posts vinder the various French Cabinets before the war.