FROM DEVIL’S ISLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20786, 3 August 1929, Page 24

FROM DEVIL’S ISLE.

TO HIS MOTHER’S ARMS. VICTIM OF DOUBLE DEALING. DIVORCE BY WIPE AFTER CONVICTION. The most amazing instance' ot miscarriage of justice since the celebrated Dreyfus case—a story replete with startling revelations and involving the misdeeds of a treacherous international spy —has jnst come to light with the release of Henri Bellon, an innocent man, who was sent to Devil’s Island for life on a charge of having caused the arrest of a French spy in Switzerland. Henri Bellon arrived in Paris recently and is now in Marseilles, where he has joined his old mother. He was sentenced on August S, 1910, by a French Military Court, but remained in a prison cell at Caen until June 21, 1921, before he Avas slxiped to Devil’s Island. There he was given the little hut of the spy Ullmo, a lone, miserable dwelling, with nothing but the sea and the constant swishing of the waves before him to soothe him or—drive him mad. In 192 1 Henri still lived. In .September of that year the French Court of Justice declared him innocent, and ordered his rehabilitation ; but it rvas only in March, 1929, that Henri Bellon 'was at last set free. Once on Devil’s Island, it is difficult to come back to ciA’ilisation, SERVED IN 1014. The,story of Henri Bellon is truly aniazing. A barber by trade, Henri went to Avar, like all the rest of them, in 1914. A year later he aa - ub Avounded and practically crippled .for life. They sent him back to his wife and mother in Marseilles.. There he tried to work at his trade; but conditions were unfavourable, so he Avent to Switzerland to try his luck. His Avife and mother remained at Marseilles. One evening, at Geneva, lie Avas seated at a small table in the Kursall, when a • stranger, avlio introduced himself as Stanley Mitchel, United States Consul at Kieff, joined him. Mitchcl Avas very affable, spoke half a dozen languages, and so fascinated the Frenchman that the tAvo became very friendly at short notice. The first thing Mitchel asked Bellon a day or so later Avas a contribution of 900 francs to engineer the escape of a Russian officer from a prisoners’ camp in Germany, Bellon willingly gave up 300 francs, and later added 2000 francs upon the representation of Mitchel that that sum was needed to bring the Russian to Geneva.

But-the Russian never showed up. Nor, did Mitchel return the money to Bellon, as he had solemnly promised. CHASE ACROSS FRONTIER. Bellon decided to have Mitchell arlested for'obtaining his money on false i epresentations, but Mitchell managed to get free and crossed the frontier into France, followed by Bellon, who wanted his money or Mitchel’s. hide. The moment they were in French territory Mitchell turned upon Bellon and had him him dragged into court, claiming that Bellon had denounced him, a . spy in the service of . France, to the author!ties of a foreign nation. Investigation of the case showed that Mitchell was indeed employed by the Second Bureau of France, but that he was in reality accredited to the German Secret Service, which he was “doublecrossing ” in favour of France. Bellon swore that > he did no't know anything of the man’s occupation, except that he had swindled him out of 2300 francs. The French Captain Desverinness, chief of the 15th Division of the Second Bureau, and directly responsible for Stanley Mitchell, produced documents which convicted Bellon of the crime of having caused tile arrest of a French Secret 'Service man on foreign territory. In his defence Bellon stated the documents were forged to save the face of the service, but it did him no good. On the contrary,* it made his case more difficult. He was sentenced by courtmartial and locked, up at Csl&b pending his deportation for life to Devil’s Island. After five years in his prison cell they at last sent him to Devil’s Island, where ho suffered all the moral and physical tortures for which this island is notorious. He was on the island four years, when the Governor of Cayenne had him taken to the regular detention quarters on the South American continent because of his good conduct. Meanwhile the French League, of Man’s Rights _ worked indefatigably to establish Henri Bellon’s innocence. .In 1927 it succeeded by producing the proofs of Mitchell’s duplicity and his record as an international crook. Bellon was reprieved, but it, took another two years to get him actually free. He is now 43 years old and grey. He was 30 when sentence was passed upon him. HELL—A PARADISE.” “ I am not a resentful man,” he said, as, he left Paris from the Gare du Lyons, “but there is just one man I .would like to get. I may meet him some day. But now 1 have only one wish—my mother, “ When I was sentenced to Devil’s Island / wife took all we possessed and ran off. “ She got a divorce later, of course, and married again, I think.” ~“Yes, Devil’s Island is a devil of a place. Hell must be a Paradise in Comparison. To be back in France is wonderful, _ I’ve been treated badly, "ji ■ if! I’d die for France any time.” J