FRENCH TRAITOR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 47, 24 February 1945, Page 6

FRENCH TRAITOR

FOUGHT WITH THE GERMANS

LONDON, February 22. A Frenchman, Andre Demessine who was. recruited by Vichy to fight side by side with the Germans, against the Russians, for which he was awarded the Iron Cross, was sentenced to death in Paris today says Reuters Paris correspondent. Demessine was formerly head of the propaganda service for the Legion of French Volunteers against Bolshevism, and a letter from him to Hitler addressed to "My Fuhrer" was read in court. Officers who fought in Russia under Demessine's orders accused him of throwing grenades into a crowd of Russian peasants The evidence revealed that the number of Frenchmen serving in the Legion of French Volunteers against Bolshevism never exceeded 8000. When Demessine heard the verdict, he refused to appeal. Four members of Doriot's Fascist Party, who pleaded that they acted under the orders of Barnaud, Vichy Delegate-General for Franco-German Economic Relations, were sentenced to death at. Marseilles today. They were accused of torturing and executing a number of Marseilles patriots. Survivors of the tortures and parents of those executed gave evidence during the trial.