INTERNATIONAL SPY RING.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 20 April 1935, Page 5

INTERNATIONAL SPY RING.

SENTENCES IMPOSED AT CLOSE OF PARIS TRIAL. WOMAN GETS FIVE YEARS. (By Telegraph-Press Assn.-Copyright). PARIS,. April 17. In connection with the trial in Paris of 21 alleged international spies, sentences totalling 32 years and fines totalling 18;000 francs were imposed on the 19 persons convicted. The penalties included three years’ Imprisonment for Madame Salman and Mademoiselle Mermet.

Mrs Lydia Stabl and Mi Dumoulin were each sentenced to imprisonment for five, years. Switz, when Mrs Switz had been found guilty, was released because he had turned State’s evidence. Dumoulin’s wife screamed and collapsed when her husband "was sentenced. , Professor Martin will have a fresh .trial, as he refused to plead.

The trial was opened in camera on March 25th when the accused appeared in the dock with two babies born in prison. The children belonged to Batman, a Polish medical student, and Madeleine Mermet, a French schoolteacher who, with two Americans, Mrs Stahl (an airwoman) and Robert Switz, And also the latter’s British-born wife, were accused of memjbership of a gang on behalf of Russia and Germany in the United States, France, and Britain. >

JSwitz declared he had entered the gang in order to denounce it. Professor Martin, an Admiralty officer, was accused of betraying secrets as the result of Mrs Stahl’s fascination.

'At"the trial Eiva Davidovici, a young Rumanian dentist, gave evidence that her function in the gang was to fill cavaties in the teeth of Mrs Switz with .temporary stoppings containing microscopic photographs of stolen plans. She .added that Madame Salman, another dentist, filled the teeth of Mademoiselle Mermet, who was alleged to be the gang’s photographic expert.

MILITARY SECRETS SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER. TWO HUNDRED PERSONS EMPLOYED. <By Telegraph-Press Assn—Copyright). Received Friday, 7 p.m. PARIS, April 18The spy gang is stated to have conducted a regular business in selling military secrets to the highest bidder. The chief revenue was derived from Russia, but important documents are understood to have been sold to Germany. The gang is said to have employed YOO persons throughout Europe. More than 300 detectives worked for a year to unravel the network and the British intelligence service was responsible for a large share of the success. Among the documents believed to have been betrayed is the whole .scheme for the industrial mobilisation of the Paris district and the text of secret lectures at the French Military Academy. It ia understood that the Switzes will be obliged to return to America. 'The Daily Express’ Paris correspondent says that an angry crowd confronted Mrs Switz when she was released and followed her in cars and •cabs to her lawyer’s flat, where she narrowly escaped the mob. She said afterwards: “I think I went into the affair for excitement. I ,am now completely cured.” Switz, who is an ex-American, said be took up espionage three years ago because he was tired of doing nothing.