SHOCKING STORY

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 64, 12 September 1924, Page 7

SHOCKING STORY

A PUNITIVE EXPEDITION

REPRISAL FOR PAPUAN MURDER

MEN, WOMEN, AND GHILDBEN SHOT.

CU.S'ITP.D PRESS ASSOCIATION COPYRIGHT.) (Received 12th September, 8.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. ■ The Sydney "Sun's" special representative in Papua reports the trial of, six natives for the murder, some time ago, b.F a labour recruiter named O'Dowd. Four of the prisoners were employed by, and accompanied, O'Dowd, at the time of the murder. According to the evidence of one of the accused, O'Dowd was returning to the village to recapture two of the; witness's brothers,-who had escaped. Their father told them to kill O'Dowd to prevent him., taking his sons away, and they made an ambush and speared 'him to death. The natives then deserted the. village and took refuge in the bush. A punitive expedition, composed of native police and other natives, was sent to the scene, and indulged in wholesale shooting. Three' native wives, witness's father, and three other women were killed, and one of the headman's wives had a. little child at' her breast and it was killed, as well as all the other children in the village . excepting three. belonging to the witness, who, with himself and his wife and four male natives, were taken prisoners. Two of the male prisoners had since died. The scene of the shooting was in the Potsdamhafen area. The Judge, in commenting on the evidence, said that if this ferocious punishment was meted out to these people, it had an important bearing on the relations between the natives and the Administration. . ; * The "Sun's"' representative states that in view of the serious statements, a searching inquiry will be made into the conduct of the punitive expedition.