GAOL FOR LIFE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20282, 17 April 1934, Page 1

GAOL FOR LIFE.

Sentence Passed on Italian Murderer. “ BLACK lIAN'D “ CASE. United Press Assn.— ETy Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received April 17, 12.30 p.m.) BRISBANE, April 17. Sentence of life imprisonment was passed on Giovanni lacona in the Cairns Court, when he was found guilty of having murdered Nicola Mammone. The existence of a “ Black Hand ” society among the Italian community on the cane fields of Northern Queensland was revealed in the course of the trial on March 20 of Guiseppi Buiti and Guiseppi Parisi, who were charged with wounding Giovanni lacona with intend to disfigure him. lacona. who had already been committed for trial for the murder of Nicola Mammone, at Innisfail, is permanently disfigured, having lost both his ears. He said in evidence that he had received several letters signed “ The Black Hand,’’ in which money was demanded from him, accompanied by menaces if he did not comply. He produced letters in which some of his friends were threatened with the loss of their cane crops by fire if he failed to influence them to send money by a messenger specially nominated.