EXTRADITION REFUSED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22823, 6 March 1936, Page 7

EXTRADITION REFUSED

VERNON AND BERTROND t SHOOTING OF MAX KASSEL PARIS, March 3. The court refused to extradite Vernon and Bertrond. Vernon later told the examining magistrate that he shot Kassel in self defence. Kassel's bullet-riddled body was found under a hedge outside St. Albans. He was identified as a French-Canadian named Emil Allard, but at the inquest a man who asked that his name be not disclosed stated that Allard's real name was Max Kassel. The Daily Mail stated that the death of Max Kassel exposed him as the leader of an international gang of white slave traffickers whose ramifications extended from Mayfair to the Continent, Australia and Canada, and as a marriage broker who installed girls he imported in luxurious West End flats. It was learned that under another name he served a sentence of eight months' imprisonment in France in connection with the transportation of a girl to Brazil. His death was regarded as the climax to a vendetta or gang feud. London police arc working on the theory that he was " put on the spot" because he knew too much about rival gangs, and was about to " squeal " to the police. On February 14 the British Government made a formal request for the extradition of Roger Vernon, alias Lacroix, on a charge of murdering Max Kassel, known as Emil Allard, whose body was found near St. Albans on January 24, and of Susan Bertrond on a charge of being an accessory after the crime. The British Note said that if, on account of their French nationality and the French law. the French Government was unable to accede to this request, the British Government would request that all necessary steps be taken by the French Government to ensure that justice was done. Copies of the warrants and depositions were enclosed with the Note, and the British Government would give all assistance to see the ends of justice served. It is understood that a French law of 1927, while making it impossible to extradite French citizens, enables the French courts to deal with crimes committed by them abroad.