FOUND GUILTY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20454, 6 November 1934, Page 1

FOUND GUILTY.

French Espionage Case. HEAVY SENTENCE. FIVE YEARS' GAOL FOR OFFICER WITH BRILLIANT RECORD United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received November 6. 10.45 am J PARIS, November .5 ; Captain Froge was found guilty of • espionage and was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, fined 5000 francs. ' banished from the Belfort area for ten | years and deprived of his civil rights for ten years. ' Krauss was sentenced to five years’ I imprisonment and fined 5000 francs, j It is expected that Froge will apI peal.

i Captain Froge, a officer with ; a distinguished war record, was j charged with betraying secret army j plans to a foreign Power. I Captain Froge’s accusers were GeisI mann, a deserter from the AusfHan 1 army, who turned police informer; and Krauss, once a Polish officer, who admitted that he had been a spy in the service of Germany. Captain Froge, who has a brilliant war record, protested his innocence. He accused Geismann of forgery. Krauss said he paid Captain Froge £2OOO for a plan of the air defences of Belfort and other frontier defences. The court heard the case in camera. Captain Froge’s lawyer demanded 1 that the British Secret Service disclose documents which he alleged revealed that the principal witness against Captain Froge was a spy in the service of various governments, and for this reason his evidence was unreliable. Feeling in the French Army was very high as Captain Froge had hitherto j been blameless, and it was felt that I this might be another Dreyfus case. ! “ The secret hearing is a pretext to , cover the machinations of the French • Intelligence Service,” declared Captain Froge’s counsel. “ There are obvious j forgers on the French General Staff, I which fears an open debate because ! the dossier is riddled with improper proceedings and it does not want to bring it into the daylight.”