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Gisborne Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 10730, 30 October 1928, Page 6

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FRENCH MURDERER ESCAPEE . RE-ARRESTED. THE FLIGHT FROM DEVIL’S ISLAND. TERRIBLE PRIVATIONS AND : . . ALL IN VAIN. United Preir Asan by El Tel. Copyright (Australian Press Association.! CARGAS (Venezuela), Oct. 28. Dr Bougrat, who escaped from Devil’s Island, has been re-arrested. Interviewed, he stated that he escaped from hospital with two companions and lied to the. jungle, joining five others who hgd escaped five days earlier,' and embarked in a small boat on a voyage of six days, during which there w#re several storms. They were thrown on . the coast of British: Guiana, where three days were spent repairing the boat. Two days more sailing brought them to the Orinoco delta, and then the voyage became a perpetual fight against heavy seas in, a leaky boat, until they arrived .miraculously . at tlie coast of the Gulf of Pai-ia, Venezuela, between Soro and Irapa, nearly doad, .having been, without food for four days and without water for 30 hours.

Dr Bougrat, who was sentenced to, imprisonment for "life on a charge of murder, in March, 1927, - escaped from tho dread penal settlement at Devil’s Island on September 6 last. Two other prisoners who were also serving life sentences gained their liberty with him. Dr' Bougrat was tried at Marseilles in March, 1927. Fie was charged with the murder of a patient named Jacques Rumebe, a comrade of the war, whose body was found in a cupboard in the accused’s surgery. It was also alleged that Bougrat had drugged women patients and then robbed them. Convicted criminals, including thieves and a man who had murdered his wife, whom Bougrat had met. during his imprisonment, said he had . suborned them to prepare alibis. One of them alleged that Bougrat confessed that he murdered Rumebe by pressing a handkerchief soaked in poison on to his face. On the last day of the trial, March 30, counsel for the defence made an impassioned appeal for pity, because the prisoner’s father wag dying. However, accused was found guilty under extenuating circumstances, and was sentenced to imprisonment with hard labor for life. The verdict apparently meant that the iurv were in doubt whether Re me be was' killed purposely O" merely through an overdose of. some drug. -