“BLOOD MONEY.”

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume IX, Issue 173, 8 July 1919, Page 3

“BLOOD MONEY.”

BETRAYAL OF NURSE CAVELL

FRENCHMAN UNDER ARREST

The most notorious case of al) of what are called the “blood-money’’ trials—the nrooeed'ngs taken against French subjects in the districts once under German occupation. who bet’-aved their compatriots to the Hun invader—is that of the Frenchman Krein, who is charged, among other offences equally trdeous with having given the information to the Germans which Jed to the arrest and execution of Mis® Fdu' Cavcll.

The case against, this man has been worked up with an elaboration and shrewdness wb’ch bids fair to defeat all the elaborate precautions he and his supposed employers have taken against his detection. Krein, who was a porter at, a religious establishment near Brussels before t.he war broke out. afterwards played a minor part in the execution of the elaborate scheme by which the “underground” passage was main tained for the ftsoang of Allied snh jeets of all nationalities from Bcl-gi’-t’U. Not only is there no scran of documentary cv’dencc to convict him of the abominable treachery with which he is charged, but it can he put forward for his defence that he has suffered two t"nns of iniprisonmenb at German hands, and has been fined on several occasions for minor offences.

but his Berginn associates began to notice how often disaster overtook plans in which he was concern; ed, anil though he invariably seemed t.o suffer from German harshness, distrust on him grew, and a final test of his straightness was deviseu. In this case arrangements were made for smuggling out of the country a refugee who only existed in the imagination of the men and women who contrived this trap for the German agent. I Krein entered upon bis part in the adventure with his usual enthusiasm, and was given a, number of misleading instructions and orders. * The result fully confirmed the suspicions of those who had laid the trap for him. The Germans attempted to arrest the non-existent refugee, and were covered with confusion as a result. . . j Krien was actually detained in the ; very act of attempting to escape from Belgium across the Dutch frontier, and was handed over to the I French authorities. An investigation of the ma c s of evidence against him connected him 'with the ease of Miss Edith C’avell, ;hut, should that charge fail there. are j others which can be brought against ;him with more absolute certainty of his conviction.

Krein is only one among a number of traitors who betrayed men and women of their own race for bloodmoney.