CZECH BRIGAND

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 October 1931, Page 3

CZECH BRIGAND

AT BAY IN COALMINE. At the military court of Olmutz, a 'town in the Czecho-Slovak province of Moravia, the robber-captain, Nicholas Kolenko has just been tried. Two years back, Kolenko, who is twenty-four, deserted from the Czechoslovak army and escaped to Germany, Holland, and Belgium. On his return to his native country he was seized and had to continue serving, but tried to kill his superior and then fled to Prussian Silesia. From his headquarters there he made thieving expeditions into the Czecho-Slovak districts of Ostrau and Teschen. He invaded the German forests and those belonging to the Rothschilds in Czechoslovakia, A whole regiment of gendarmes was sent out to hunt him down, but Kolenko held all of them in check. In December last he was discoveied in .a neglected coal-mine, where he had taken refuge. A large force of gendarmes besieged the entrance, and ordered him to surrender. Kolenko refused, and some of the gendarmes, protected by shields of steel, invaded the mine, but were obliged to withdraw before the robber’s revolver. Thev then tried vapour of ammonia, but ‘ it. was thirty hours before Kolenko was smoked out of hrs hole. In reply to the judge, he- said he had never wanted to murdei a py* body, but had merely defended himself and plundered “only in Germany.