ESCAPED PRISONERS.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2124, 16 May 1922, Page 5

ESCAPED PRISONERS.

CAPTURED AT NEWCASTLE. PUBLIC.SYMPATHY AROUSED. [By Electric Cable —Copyright.] [Aust. and N.Z. Cable Association,] (Received Monday, 9.15 p.m.) SYDNEY, May 15. Two French prisoners who escaped from the ship El Kantara were tried at the Newcastle Police Court for vagrancy and remanded till May 22. Both have been banished for life by the French Government. One, Tulop, was an airman in the same force as Carpentier. He was also a boxer at Paris, having beaten Criqui, who recently visited Australia. He refused to fight against the Bolsheviks on the Serbian front, went to Spain, and was charged with desertion on returning to France. He is an undergraduate, and has left his wife and children in France. The other prisoner, Sziber, is a Rumanian. He was banished on a charge of obstructing the French authorities when the occupation of Hungary commenced after the Armistice was declared. He was engaged in military police duties at a railway station in Hungary and refused to hand over railway facilities to the invading army. It is thought that France will probably commence extradition proceedings and friends of the prisoners in Newcastle and Sydney are suggesting an appeal for funds to fightthe case.