AN AUSTRALIAN OFFICER'S

Taranaki Herald, Volume L, Issue 11934, 7 April 1902, Page 2

AN AUSTRALIAN OFFICER'S

VERSION.. " REVENGE NOT PLUNDER " THE MOTIVE, THE TIMES DEMANDS FULL INFORMATION. Received April 6, 4.59 p.m. , London, April. s.—Lieutenant Picton, who was cashiered in connection with the shooting, has arrived by the steamer Canada. In the course of an interview with a Daily Mail representative, he stated , that Captain Hunt's party of Carbineers attacked Barand Viljoen's farm at Duivelssroop in September, Hunt was left wounded on the verandah. Next day Morant and Handcocks found Hunt's body stripped and brutally kicked about the face. His legs wore slashed with, a knife and one eye gouged out, while the neck was also broken. Mr Reuter, a missionary at the station where Hunt was buried,, so Picton alleged, confirmed this. Morant and Handcocks swore, revenge, and ordered that if the murderers were - captured no quarter was to be given them. A Boer caught dressed in. Hunt's clothes got short shrift. Later eight others were captured and a drumhead courtmartial showed that thejr belonged to the- same, party. They were executed. Revenge, and not plunder, was the motive. Picton considered the laws of war justified the executions. The story about obtaining £20,000 from the Boer waggons was a lie. Mrs Schiel, wife of Colonel Schiel, who was a prisoner, j roved thai Handcocks and Morant were at a farmhouse fojty miles away on the night that Heese, a German missionary, was murdered. Morant, in his dying moments, protested his innocence. The Times demands information of the 'officers' crimes, and says tho details published are. meagre and the country has a right to know the exact truth.