PARIS SPY DRAMA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20217, 30 March 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

PARIS SPY DRAMA.

STORY OF A " DEATH RAY." WIRELESS OFFICER ATTACKED UNCONSCIOUS IN STREET, j A sensational storv of secret documents ! relating to marvellous war inventions | stolen from a foreign Power, a secret i mission to France, and a dramatic attack j in the Bois de Boulogne on the man from | whom the documents are alleged to have ; been stolen, is being investigated by the i French Secret Service. The victim of the alleged attack is ' a Belgian named Joseph Antoine Delattre, ! v. ho was found unconscious in the Bois | de Boulogne and taken to hospital with | a serious wound on his head, j He said he was a merchant marine j wireless officer, and that he had come to j Paris to sell to the French Intelligence Department certain secret documents rej lating to wonderful wireless inventions inj stalled in the warship of a foreign Power, j He said also that he was with two men, j former wireless officers, when he was atj lacked, knocked unconscious, and the j documents stolen from him.

Jt has been ascertained that five days previously Delattre actually called at the Intelligence Department of the French War Office, and was received 1»y an officer, j jo whom he proposed to sell the docu- ! rnents which he .said lie possessed, and i which, from the desciiption he gave, re- | sernhled the famous " JJe.itli Kay," which | it is claimed c;:n stop the motor of ;iri | airplane in flight. j 'fTie officer declares that Delattre asj Hired him the invention, had heen stolen j from a country that adjoined Fiance, j The officer's .suspicions were aroused when i Delattre asked as recompense only that I he should he given employment, and with- | out committing himself, the oflicer allowed j his visitor to go, and had him shadowed ;hy the police. Inquiries at the Belgian j Fmha.ssy in Paris have revealed that | J)elattre called there, and asked to sc j the Chief intelligence Officer. I Among the documents found in Tie- | lattre's pocket was a letter, hut without j the name of the addressee, written in j French—in what appeared to he German I handwriting. In this letter the writer

savs it is possible that he will meet with a mysterious adventure similar to the one that befell him recently in Paris. The police have further ascertained that Delattro came to l'aris from Brussels to meet a young woman he know, and who, it was alleged, was to introduce him to certain officers and students.