TERRIBLE CONDITIONS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19846, 15 January 1920, Page 4

TERRIBLE CONDITIONS

In answer to tho Judge Advocate witness said that tho condition of the men working on the. railway was terrible, and they wore scarcolv any clothes.

Captain Keeling, of the Indian Reserve, slated that he was captured by the Turks, hut escaped from Asia anil returned to England. After the armistice ho was sent to Mesopotamia to make investigations into hospital conditions there during tho war. He received many complaints against German and Armenian doctors, lint none against tho British authorities, and certainly none against the accused.

COUNSEL AND THE TRAGEDY OF THE CASE, . Elkin, for the defence, declared that the prosecution failed .on the uncorroborated statement of men who did no doubt suffer grievously in their captivity. ■ Fratel was not responsible for those conditions.

, Throughout the time covered by the incidents at Bngtsche, Fratel was noting unnder the direction of Dr Camus (who has since died), the German in charge, and Oomus was the brute who was responsible.

“It is said that Fratel was a coward,” said counsel. “ I say he was not- If he had been ho would have chosen to go on the lino and work there. Instead, ho elected to remain at the hospital and do what little he could for our men.”

The Judge Advocate, Mr Sutherland Graeme, reminded counsel in regard to another case, that the evidence was that the sick man was dying and that I‘rntel loti; him lying in the open outside his hunk tor twenty minutes. This is tho tragedy of this case.” exclaimed Mr Elkin; “he was not the only man dying. On an average seven died every day. If those things took place in a London hospital tho accused would deserve shooting, but consideration must be rjiven to tbo circumstances m which bo was placed. It is a libel on the name to call this conglomeration of lints a hospital. Huts in which there should have been no more than twenty men wore crowded with 120, many of them in a dying condition-” ADMIRATION FOR BRITISH IN CAPTIVITY. Deputy Judge-Advocate Sutherland Graeme, in tho course of his summingup, said they could hare nothing but admiration for the devotion to duty displayed by those British soldiers who were prisoners and the spirit of comradeship and loyalty v.'ia.t pervaded them in times of adversity, but their natural feelings of sympathy must not cause them to forget the task imposed upon them.

in the evidence it had boon related that fifty-eight men out of 139 who had inarched into tho camp had died there. Ihe accused, whatever restrictions were placed upon his functions, was regarded as tho British Medical Officer, and was the only man at Bagtsche to whom prisoners reported. There was a further danger of overlooking the fact that most of tho persons who had given evidence wore smarting under a, sense of wrong. 'lliey had seen their comrades unfit for work threatened and neglected. They had seen men desperately ill and dying, and it had scorned that nobody cared. In similar circumstances there was often a tendency to seek out a scapegoat on whom to fix tho responsibility for all that had occurred. They were liable to form biassed and prejudiced theories. Ho did not suggest that witnesses in that case had consciously or unconsciously brought themselves to state that the accused l was tho villain of tho piece, but it was essentially one of those cases which demanded the very closest possible scrutiny of the evidence-

“ SLOVENLY AND INEXPERTENCED-”

At the conclusion of the summing-up, which occupied two hours and a- half, tho Court retired to consider their verdict.

On their return, evidence of character was produced by Captain Eastwood, who prosecuted, in the form of a. telegram from the Viceroy of- India, which said that. Fratcl was 11 intelligent, efficient, regular, temperate, and active, but slovenly and- inexperienced* Mr Elkin, who defended, said that after having been through the 150 days’ seigo of Rut the accused had received « communication from the Commanding Officer of the 86th Heavy Battery of the R.G.A., thanking him for “ the most excellent work done in No 0 Indian General Hosnital.”

Mr Elkin asked that the Court should deal leniently with Fraiel in view of the facts that had come before them, going to prove he was a humane man. He had been kind, even benevolent, to his follow men, and had done acts which could only come from one who felt for his comrades, whom he had done his best to help in unparalleled and distressing circumstances. Tho President announced that the Court would bo closed to consider the sentence, which will ho promulgated in duo course.