Colonel's Wife Shot For Revenge

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 133, 8 June 1935, Page 9

Colonel's Wife Shot For Revenge

KILLED BY NATIVE SOLDIER, HER HUSBAND’S ORDERLY

The news of a terrible tragedy of African revenge, with the Spanish wife of one of the best-known officers in the French Air Force as its victim, recently created a tremendous sensation in society circles in Paris. Madame Bouseat, whose husband-in-Chief of the air forces in Morocco, was shot and killed at their homo at Rabat, Morocco, by a native corporal her husband’s personal servant, who immediately afterwards shot himself dead. Colonel Bouseat, who has been Under-Secretary for Air, is the second youngest colonel iu the French Air Force and has a brilliant war record. He knows Africa well, and has several llights across the Sahara to his credit.

He was second in command of General Yuillemiu’s armada of 23 ’planes which made the IG,OOO-miles tour of French Africa in 3933. The discovery of Madame Bouseat’s tragic fate was made by a friend whu called at her villa. As the bell went unanswered she pushed open Lie door and walked into the dining-room. There she was horrified to find Madame Bouseat lying with her tcmpic pierced by a bullet. She was breathing feebly, but was beyond all aid.

In tlio kitchen close by the colonel’s native orderly, Kcbir Ben Bouih, lay .dying, still clutching his Service revolver.

One of the first to arrive at the tragic home was Colonel Bouseat’s son, a sergeant in the air force at Casablanca, who was returning home on leave.

Colonel Bouseat, who was Agadir at the timo of the murder, where ho had flown in command of a squadron of eight aeroplanes, had the dreadful news broken to him by a brother officer. He returned to Rabat at onco with his daughter, who had been holidaymaking at Fez. The corporal, it is stated, had been nursing a grudge against Madame Bouseat, who had recently to reprimand him for neglect of duty, and there appears to be no doubt that he chose his opportunity when Madame Bouseat was alone with him in the villa.

The position in which her body was found led the authorities to believe that the orderly host, her by surprise. There was no sign of a struggle or of attempt on the part of the victim to defend herself, which, it is said, a woman of Madame Bouseat’s energy and temperament most certainly would have done had she not been shot down unawares.

The King secured the chief honours at a dog show at King’s Lynn, Norfolk, and won tlio Clumber spaniel' section with a cream trio, which included Sandringham Spark, a former Cruft’s winner.