UNLAWFUL ENTRY TO N.Z.

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24904, 18 June 1946, Page 4

UNLAWFUL ENTRY TO N.Z.

GREEK CONVICTED AND DISCHARGED BEFRIENDED MEN OF N.Z.E.F. ON CALAMOS (P.A.) GISBORNE, June 17. A Greek seaman and cook Agryrios Kandyllotis, aged 47, was convicted and discharged by Mr E. L. Walton, S.M., on charges of unlawfully entering New Zealand at Auckland on May 31, and deserting the ship Sambrian at Wellington on June 1. Evidence was given by Alan Charles Barker, formerly a N.Z.E.F. sergeant, and George Edward Frost, also a former soldier, that the accused befriended them on the island of Calamos, and kept them at his home for several months. Both said that if the accused had been caught harbouring them he would have been summarily executed. The accused, in evidence, said that before the war he owned land on Calamos and a small trading ship. He sheltered a number of Allied soldiers hiding on the island? knowing that death would be the penalty if he was caught. The islanders were now mostly Communist and strongly hostile to the British group, and he was sure that it he returned the Communists would probably shoot him and his family, who were still there. He wished to stay in the Dominion to work with his brother, who was in business in Petone.