BEHEADED BY NAZIS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 20, 5 June 1939, Page 2

BEHEADED BY NAZIS

FATE OF BRITISH AGENT MASKED THROUGHOUT THE TRIAL News has reached England of the execution of a mysterious Irishman after a trial which was conducted, with the utmost secrecy. The man arrived at Cologne air. port, coming from France three weeks ago. immediately he stepped from the machine, waiting Gestapo men seized him and hurried him to a room reserved for whose papers are not in order. When he emerged a few minutes later to enter the police ear a black hood had been pulled over his face, and the police had driven off the who had been waiting for his reappearance. He was taken to Gestapo headquarters, where the features were entirely hidden from view by a black mask of thin metal. He was not allowed to quit his mask from that day until his head dropped from the headsman's block on to the sawdust in the execu. tion yard. NO EVIDENCE IN PUBLIC He wore the mask when he faced the ''People's Tribunal," and contrary to the usual practice no evidence was given in, public. Instead, the judges were handed typed notes of agents, who are supposed to have him under observation, and the prisoner was not told what the charges against him were or allowed to have legal representation. The death sentence was pronounced at-midnight and five hours later was carried out.' To guard against all possibility of identity being estab. lished, the man's remains were ere. mated immediately afterwards. The facts, such as they are given here, have ben collected by French agents, and are now in possession of the British on the assumption that the hooded victim was a British agent Most remarkable of all the facts connected with the affair is the explanation offered by the French authorities for the strange secrecy. It is that the German secret service has found a double of the dead man, and hopes to use him to get on , the trail of those in Germany who j have been furnishing the dead agent with the information of vital import- j anee. This theory is strengthened by the fact that communications from the known only by a number, have been traced passing through the post in France since the execution. It is alleged that the executed man was responsible for furnishing to the British Government in January last details of the German plan for simultaneous invasion of Holland and Switzerland in an attempt to turn the famous Maginot line. MARRIAGE, MONEY & MAORIS o TRIALS OF EUROPEAN WIFE "If I wasn't married I wouldn't be in debt,"-' said a.Maori when being xamined in the New 7 Plymouth court under r\ judgment summons, as to the origin of his debts. ''I married a European girl, and she couldn't stand the Maoris "blowing in'' at any time'' said the sani'? man ''so I cleared out and struck out for myself. I went to Australia for a . time. Most people think that if a Maori marries a European and clears out that's the last that will be seen of him. I came back, but I had only £2 in my pocket when. I arrived back in New Plymouth. Counsel said that many people don't come hack with even £2.