CONVICTIONS ANNULLED

Evening Star, Issue 20372, 2 January 1930, Page 9

CONVICTIONS ANNULLED

FRENCH POLITICAL OFFENDERS Pr*ss Auociation—By Telegraph—Copyright ' LONDON, December 31. (Received January 2, at 1.30 a.m.) The Paris correspondent of ‘The Times ’ states • that President Doumorgue lias annulled the convictions of Leon Daudet, Camille Renee, and other political offenders. Daudet is going to Paris on January 2 from Belgium. [ln December, 1923, Philippe Daudet, the fifteen-year-old son of Leon Daudet, a director of the Royalist paper ‘ I’Action Francaise,’ was shot dead. He was reported to have joined an anarchist society, and .it was alleged that the police had him removed as a dangerous person, putting forward the theory that ho had committed suicide. His father denied that Philippe was an anarchist, and bitterly attacked the police, accusing them of murdering the boy. Rajot, the driver of the cab in which Philippe was found shot, sued M. Daudet for £2,000 damages for having libellously accused him of complicity in the supposed crime. The court found Daudet guilty of criminal libel, and sentenced him to five months’ imprisonment. An appeal was lodged against the sentence in February, 1926, but was dismissed. In June, 1927, when called upon to give himseh up for imprisonment, Daudet barricaded himself in his offices, which were surrounded by a bodyguard of armed Royalists. Five days later ho surrendered to the police. On Juno 24 a Royalist practical joker, imitating ;tho voice of M. Sarrant, Minister of the Interior, telephoned to the prison authorities and ordered Daudet’s release. The authorities complied with the order, and Daudet left Paris.]