PRISON CAMP HORROR IN ALGERIA

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 123, 19 February 1944, Page 7

PRISON CAMP HORROR IN ALGERIA

Trial Of 11 Men Opens TORTURE AND MURDER ALLEGED

(Bv Telegraph.—l'ress Assn.—Copyright.) (Received February 18, 0.30 p.tm.)

LONDON, February 17.

The trial of 11 men lor torturing and murdering prisoners in a Vichy concentration camp at Coloinb-Bechar, 'Algeria, opened today, reports Hie Algiers correspondent of “The Times.” A ( £ormer camp commandant, Lieutenant Santucci, is among the accused, who include six Frenchmen, two Germans, one Italian, one Russian, and one Algerian. The witnesses are of even more diverse nationalities. This plainly is not merely a French affair, but the word of Nazism with its concentration camps and bestiality is on trial, with the world to witness against it, eays the correspondent, lhe charges, covering four sheets, include murder, accusations against five accused. It is a gruesome document. Atrocities alleged include beating wounded on the heacls with truncheons: sick refused access to doctors till too late; healthy men starved till they fell and all died. One prisoner, a Spaniard, who was formerly with the Republican army, was alleged to have been handed over to the guards with orders that he should be disposed of within a week. He is described as a natural athlete, hard and strong. lie was beaten almost without respite for seven days, and on the eighth day he died. Atrocities are alleged to have been perpetrated against men of the Foreign Legion, mostly intellectuals, who joined up after the outbreak of war. The first witnesses will be heard tomorrow.