IN A SPANISH PRISON

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 23 August 1935, Page 8

IN A SPANISH PRISON

BRITISH SEA CAPTAIN. ACCUSED' OF ASSAULTING POLICEMAN. PALMA (Majorca), July 8. His Palma gaolers refuse to give up Captain Alexander Kane, imprisoned London sea captain, though lie is a sick man and has been recommended for instant removal to hospital by the local Court’s own physician. Instead lie is kept in a cell with seven other prisoners, all Spaniards. An urgent petition for his removal to hospital was telegraphed to Madrid by Captain Kane’s advocate, Senor Sorecla. Earlier in the day the President of the Palma. Tribunal had refused to release him—despite the Court physician’s certificate in favour of it. 1 The President’s only argument was : “It’s a. matter for Madrid.” Captain Kane, master of the London steamer Brompton Manor, was sentenced to two years and four months’ imprisonment for “forcibly resisting the police”—a plain-clothes man—at Fort Mahon. He strenuously denies striking the man. Palma gaol has accommodation for 25 persons. It at present .contains 125. Sanitation is non-existent. Three years ago the gaol was condemned by the authorities as unfit for human habitation. i The prison governor himself is sorry for the captain. He summoned him to his office and made a long speech to him in Spanish, but the captain did not understand a word. The captain replied in English. The governor did not understand. The two men fell* silent. Special efforts are being made by the British Embassy in Madrid to persuade the Spanish authorities to liberate the captain, provisionally. The greatest complication in the appeal is the circumstance that if the captain is acquitted, the Spanish Government. will be liable to pay him damages and demurrage money (compensation) for the ship being held up. Meanwhile he remains a sick man, just recovered from fever and a lip tumour operation, in Palma gaol.