“BAD BANDITS”

Taranaki Daily News, 13 October 1934, Page 7

“BAD BANDITS”

PICTURESQUE RASCALS. CORSICA’S LAST OUTLAW. Ajaccio (Corsica), Sept. 2. His resistance shattered by the pitiless talking of French gendarmes, Francois Bornea, said to be the last of Corsica’s “bad bandits,” has surrendered to the police. Tired and haggard from dodging gendarmes for three years in the hinterland, the bandit came into the village of Levie and gave himself up. He is charged with committing a murder in 1930.

When French troops and gendarmes, equipped with tanks, launched their big bandit roundup in 1931, Bornea, a former gendarme who joined the band of the notorious Joseph Bartoli, fled to the brush. Since then the hunted man had constantly to change his hiding places in shepherds’ huts and caves. “I couldn’t stand it any longer,” he said on surrendering to the police, Francois Bornea is one of the many “bad men” of Corsica to surrender, be killed, or captured following the police campaign to purge the island of the outlaws.

The outlaws have been tracked down since 1931 in a manner unequalled since Napoleon 111. sent a picked force against them. ’Planes, armoured cars, and ma-chine-guns manned by picked gendarmes were used in the man hunt. Joseph Bartoli, bandit king of the town of Palneca, was slain, as was Caviglioli. Jean Jacques Santoni is supposed to be dead. Marie Caviglioli is under arrest, as is her lover, the famous bandit, Andre Spada. Spada was captured by police in a mountain hideout in May, 1933. For eleven years Spada had foiled all efforts to bring him to justice. He was considered a sort of modern Robin Hood by the villagers in Corsica and was called “overlord of the brush.” Gendarmes cornered another notorious outlaw named Torres in the mountains on February 10, 1932. Advancing warily, they found his retreat defended by a machine-gun. They decided to shoot it out, and a sharp engagement ensued, but Torres escaped in the confusion. The police picked up his trail and captured him suffering from bullet wounds. He was hiding in a forested mountain crater. Several bandit leaders surrendered or were captured in 1932.