HEAVY SENTENCE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 291, 6 November 1934, Page 7

HEAVY SENTENCE

ON FRENCH OFFICER

GAOL, FINE, BANISHMENT, AND DEGRADATION,

AN APPEAL LIKELY,

(United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received November 6, 9.45 a.m. PARIS, Nov. 5.

Captain Froge, the French officer with a distinguished record, who stood his trial on the charge of betraying secret army plans to a foreign Power, was to-day sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, fined 5000 francs, subjected to banishment from the Belfort area for ten years, and ordered the deprivation of civil rights for ten years. Krauss, tlie former Polish officer, was sentenced to five years in prison, and fined 5000 francs. It is expected that Froge will appeal against the sentence.

For the first time since the Dreyfus case, troops guarded the Law Courts at Belfort owing to fears of disturbances at the trial of Captain Froge. His accusers were Geissmann, a deserter from the Austrian army, who turned police informer, and Krauss, a Polish exiofficer, who admitted he had been a spy in the service of Germany. Froge throughout protested his innocence and accused Geissmann of forgery. Krauss stated that he paid Froge £2OOO for a plan of the air defences of Belfort and other frontier defences. Feeling in the Army was very high as Captain hroge had hitherto been blameless and it was felt this might be another Dreyfus case. “The secret hearing is a pretext to cover the machinations of the French Intelligence Service,” declared Froge s counsel. “There are obvious forgers on the French General Staff, which fears to open the debate because tlie dossier is riddled with improper proceedings. It does not want to let in daylight thereon.”