FAKED TREATY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 65, 4 March 1929, Page 5

FAKED TREATY

CULPRITS’ CONFESSION OF FORGERY HOW ROYAL SEAL WAS IMITATED. BELGIUM’S DENIAL VINDICATED [United Frees Association—By CableCopyright.] [Australian and N.Z. Frees Association.) Brussels. March 3. On the arrijral of the Amsterdam express after midnight a man was arrested and charged with being the author of the “Dagblad’s” alleged secret treaty. He is stated to have a bad record. He was born in 1896 near Brussels of a Dutch Jewish father and German mother. REPORTED CONFESSION. [Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) (Received 4, 13.25 a.m.) Brussels, March 3. Newspapers state that the name of the arrested man is Frank Heine. He confessed that he forged the document, using a seal made from an impression of a French 25 centime piece. He intended to sell the forgery to the German espionage service but instead sold it to the “Dagblad” for a good price. ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE. (Auetra''ai) and N.Z. Press Association.] (Received 4. 10.25 a.m.) Brussels, March 3. Heine admits that he was entirely responsible for the “Dagblad” forgeries. The treaty was a plagiarism of the Franco-Russian pre-war treaty, recently published by the Soviet. It did not concern Belgium and Holland Heine declared that the German espionage at Mulheim, to which he first offered the documents, disbelieved their authenticity and refused them. He negotiated with the headquarters of the Activists of which he was a member, and sold the documents through the good offices of an Antwerp journalist, whose arrest is shortly expected. “I do not consider that I sold France and Belgium. I simply cheated a buyer, which is u venial swindle,” Heine declared. BELGIUM MISUNDERSTOOD. PUBLIC OPINION BACKS UP PROTEST. [Australian Press Assn.—United Service.) (Received 4, 9.5 a.m.) Brussels, March 3. M. Hymans, speaking at a municipal banquet at Brussels, declared that Belgium had been carrying on delicate but friendly economic negotiations with Hol’lanff and in consequence of the publication of the forged documents, voices had been raised attributing aggressive schemes and manoeuvres to Belgium. He added: “We have categorically and solemnly contradicted these apocryphal documents upon all points. We have got the right to ask that our word should not be doubted. Belgium personified the cause of right during the war. Who imagines that she is squandering her patrimony of honour in nccult machinations threatening world peace? The Belgian public is wholly behind our protests.” General Gullet, Chief of the Belgian General Staff, whose name figures largely in the alleged minutes of the Franco-Belgian military conference, categorically denounced the “Dagblad’s” document as a forgery fiom beginning to end. He reserves the right to demand compensation for libel.