FAMOUS DEVIL'S ISLAND TO BE LIQUIDATED

Chronicle (Levin), 13 April 1946, Page 8

FAMOUS DEVIL'S ISLAND TO BE LIQUIDATED

SALVATION ARMY OFFICER TAKING OVER NEW YORK, April 11. Devil's Island, the nemesis of France's hardened criminals for the past century, will succumh for three years to a mild-mannered Salvation Array olncer, who has orders from the t French Government to liquidate it, rei ports the Nev/ York Times. i Major Charles Pean is at present in ; New York en route to French Guiana to give effect to a new law which was enacted in 1938 but was not eni'orced oecause of the v/ar. He said that the first to henefit from i che new scheme would he 2800 con- ; victs, who had finished their term but i because of shortage of shipping had been forced to languish on, forgotten, : in the equatorial heat, with shrinking i rations and inadequate medical sup i plies. One thousand of these will b'e 1 forced to stay at least for a furthei year. Of those still serving sentenees sorne will he pardoned and others will be shifted to France. : Those who are too old or too ill to leave hospital will he left until they die. These coniprise 2000 felons, 300 liabitual criminals, and 27 political prisoners who were sentenced ' for treason. ! j' It was on Devil's Island that Captain Dreyfus was imprisoned from 1894 until 1899 after being convicted by a secret military trihunal of divulging | Btate secrets to the German Govern- ; ment. Aiter a retrial he was pardoned.