WARRANTS ISSUED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26415, 20 March 1947, Page 7

WARRANTS ISSUED

CHURCH LEADERS IN FRANCE OUTCOME OF JOANOVICI CASE Rec. 7.30 p.m. LONDON, Mar. 18. Warrants have been issued against the heads of religious houses in connection with the allegations that Joseph Joanovici made between £20,000,000 and £80,000,000 by acting as shipping agent for both the French and Germans and concealing political prisoners in monasteries during the war, says the Exchange Telegraph’s Paris correspondent. The closest inquiry is to be made to discover whether Paris clergy alone were responsible or that the instigation came from higher quarters outside France.

French police investigations of the activities of Joseph Joanovici are stated to have revealed that he cleared a profit variously estimated at £20,000,000 to £80,000,000 by acting as shipping jggent for both the French and the Germans during the war. Joanovici, who is a 46-year-old illiterate Rumanian, is believed to have escaped, and M. Fournet, police chief, who is alleged to have warned Joanovici that his arrest was planned, has been sent to gaol. The Daily Mail’s Paris correspondent said it was also disclosed that 30 car-loads of police raided convents and other religious institutions near Paris and found over 50 members of the pro-German Vichy militia, including one condemned to death and also plant for forging false passports. The police arrested six monks, including the chiefs of two monasteries.