PLEA FOR LIBERTY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20543, 19 February 1935, Page 5

PLEA FOR LIBERTY.

Spirit of Stavisky’s Wife Remains Unbroken. A BITTER ATTACK. PARIS, January 10. “ One of the cleverest women of our time ” was the unanimous opinion of the members of the Parliamentary Stavisky Committee after the evidence given at her own request by Mme Arlette Stavisky, on the anniversary of her husband’s suicide at Chamonix. Still beautiful and with her spirit unbroken after nearly a year in preventive custody, the former mannequin proclaimed her innocence and demanded her liberty with arguments ! which strongly impressed the committee. I " I want to be told at least one definite charge so that I may challenge it,” she cried. “ But I am still waiting for **«« a^ter a }' ear prison. “ I arn detained only because I was the wife of Stavisky and because I lived with him. Is that sufficient ground? Since when has it been a crime for a wife to live with her husband and take care of her children ? I had nothing to do with my husband’s business and I do not know anything about it. If I knew and if I were prepared ! to barter my knowledge as others have successfully done I might have secur- j ed my freedom.” Then followed an attack on her rivals, the various women friends of Stavisky who once acted as gobetweens in his business and who were never arrested or charged. Was I the woman who arranged the dinner parties with members of the Cabinet?” she asked. I “ Was I the woman who called at the I various Ministries on Staviskv’s bej half? | “ All these women are free because i they knew’; and I am detained just I because I do not know.” j This last part of her statement, I I was told by a member of the com- [ mittee to-night, could not have been j more impressively delivered by the best French actress.