FRENCH TRIAL

Evening Star, Issue 19520, 30 March 1927, Page 6

FRENCH TRIAL

THE CASE GF DR BOUGRAT A LIFE SENTENCE EMOTIONAL SCENES IN COURT Press Association—By Telo^mpb—Copyright PARIS, March 29. (Received March 30, at 12.30 p.m.) The trial of Dr Buograt, of Marseilles, on a charge of murdering a patient named Rumebes and locking the corpse in a cupboard in 1925, which has been referred to widely as tho “Jekyll and Hyde ” case, concluded sensationally. liougrat had a splendid war record, but tho worst of reputations for sexuality. He was found guilty under extenuating circumstances and sentenced to hard labor for life, the verdict apparently meaning that tho jury was in doubt whether Rumebes was killed purposely or merely by an overdose of a drug.

A feature of the closing part of the trial was that three expert toxicologists declared that Bougrat could not have poisoned Rumebcs. who died from the effects of injections that he was receiving for his complaint. The exports expressed the opinion that liougrat, finding that be had unwittingly killed his patient, lost his head and hid the body.

The experts’ evidence caused angry scenes, in which the judge was accused of partiality. The counsel for the prosecution even hinted that the murder charge might be dropped and Bougrat charged only with theft and concealment of the body. In the closing stages the prosecution, however, emphasised the murder charge. The concluding phase was so emotional that the judge, jury, counsel, and the reporters alike were weeping. Several women fainted. , French negro soldiers with fixed bayonets wer on duty outside te court to keep the crowd in order. There were many hand-to-hand fights in trying to secure admittance. A pathetic figure of the trial was Rumebes’s widow and his two little girls, dressed in the deepest black. The denounced Bougrat in court, crying again and again, “ I demand his head.” The defence made an impassioned ippeal for pity on account of prisoner’s dying father.