POSING AS A SWISS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 58, 1 December 1917, Page 10

POSING AS A SWISS

HUN DESERTER. WITH SECRET > MILITARY DOCUMENTS.

Said to be a hall-porter at a local hotel, Ernest Bellichsheiner, who pleaded guilty, was recently sentenced in England to six months' hard labour for failing to register, and fined £20 or two months for obtaining a situation by means of a forged testimonial.

Ethel Brooker, a chambermaid, who liad been living with the man as his wife, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting him, and was remanded to a home for a week.

When arrested at the Clarendon Hotel, Bellichsheiner had in his possession important secret military documents and an officer's kit bag, and in his pocket were German calling-up papers. , • To the Magistrates Bellichsheiner said his father was a Pole. He was really a deserter from the Gerrnan Army. He did not sympathise with tho German Government,'but he was sorry for the German people. He preferred wearing English khaki to being a German soldier. As lie feared internment he protended to bo a Swiss. He asserted that he was not an enemy of tie English.

Inspector Matthews said tho man had been wanted by the metropolitan police since September, 1914. They had lost all trace of him.