INHUMANITY TO KUT PRISONERS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14984, 11 August 1919, Page 3

INHUMANITY TO KUT PRISONERS.

SHOCKING SUFFERINGS OF THJ

SICK

(Elec. Tel. Copyright— United Press Assiv.j (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association). LONDON, August 8. Horrible revelations were made at the court-gnartial of Fratel, an Eurasian warrant officer. Nineteen separate charges of cruelty were formulated against numerous officers.

Men imprisoned at Bagtsche camp gave evidence that Fra.tel was m hs bunk smoking and reading, when men were dyinj>- of cholera, wholesale owing to the lack of attention and medicine. They begged Fratel to help, but he refused, though he was assistant surgeon at Ahe camp. SOme men gave evidence that they saw men kicked out of hospital by orderlies m Fratel's presence. Fratel did not protest. He even threatened tv flog the British with a raw-hide thong wherewith the prisoners were beaten on the back or the solas of . the feet. There Avere no medical supplies on the trains carrying prisoners, and no food or water for the sick, though others were given a . loaf of bread. Of fov'ty sick bundled into one train twenty died. The sick m hospilals underwent shocking sufferings. Tlieyrwere never washed, and were thrust into tents to die. When they were dead they were llan<> into a so-called "dead house ' neur.'v filled with rubbish. Sometimes a.- doze!, corpses were there. British soldier.ivere iiung m anyhow, some naked, somy m knickers.

[A previous message .stated that 're volting cruelty and treachery were revealed at the court-martial of Frale.\ an Eurasian warrant officer charged .with gross inhumanity and neglect to Km prisoners at Bagtsclie hospital. It is alleged that Fratel kicked a dying man, while dead were flung by Greek ordoriies into a mortuary, mostly na.ked, and afterwards were buried m shallow graves, whence jackals dug them up and gnawed their bodies. The prosecution suggested that Fratel, believing the Britis:: were defeated, sought to ingratiate himself /With the Turks.