PORTHOLE ESCAPE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 874, 21 July 1910, Page 5

PORTHOLE ESCAPE.

; $ INTERNATIONAL COMEDY. PRISONER TOUCHES FRENCH SOIL NICE POINT RAISED. By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright (Rec. July 20,' 8.5 p.m.) London, July, 20. A few days ago Yinayak- Savarkar, tho young Indian student, recently extradited from London after lengthy proceedings on a charge of sedition in Indin, escaped from the mail steamer at Marseilles, but was promptly recaptured. Owing to the fact that Savarkar landed on French soil, tho French Government has requested the suspension of his trial, and it is possible that he will have to return to France pending an application for extradition. POLICEMAN LETS THE BIRD GO. NO BRITISH OBLIGATION. (Rec. July 20, 9.50 p.m.) London, July 20. "The Times" Paris correspondent " reports that it was a ■ sergeant of the French dock police at Marseilles who captured Savarkar while he was clambering ashore through a porthole from tho P. and O. liner Morea. The sergeant handed Savarkar over to the steamer authorities. French Socialists are contending that Savarkar should have been handed over to. the chief of the harbour police. The persistence of M. Jaures and other Socialists induced the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, M. Pichon, courteously to ask Great Britain to stay proceedings until the documents in the case had been submitted to France. The correspondent lays emphasis on the point that any infringement of the rules of international law which has taken place is due to the sergeant's action, and Great, Britain is scarcely under an obligation to repair a i'rench official's error. ' , '

Savarkar is a young Indian law student who was charged in London under the Fugitive Offenders Act with having waged or abetted the waging of war on the King; conspiring to deprive the King of the Sovereignty of British India; collecting men, arms, and ammunition; and of speaking and writing words of hatred or disaffection against the King. Few of the extradition treaties in force provide for the granting of extraditions. fpr political offences. Thus Savarkar might possibly have escaped scot free if the French policeman had nothanded him back to the ship.