A PRISON CAMP HORROR

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 270, 11 August 1919, Page 5

A PRISON CAMP HORROR

DREADFUL TREATMENT OF KUT PRISONERS •' FRATEL, THE EURASIAN GHOUL Bj TaloEraDh-Press Association-Copyrich! (Rec. August 10, 5.5 p.m.) London, Auugst 8. In a cablegram dated July 15 a storj of revolting cruelty and treachery was revealed at a court-martial at which Fratel, a Eurasian warrant-officer, was charged with gross inhumanity and neglect of prisoners from Kut-el-Ama-ra in the Bagtscho Hospital. It was alleged tlmt Fratel kicked a dying man, while dead men were' Hung by Cireek orderlies into the mortuary, mostly naked, and woro afterwards buried iu shallow graves, from which jackals dug them up and gnawed the bodies. The prosecution suggested that Fratel, believing the British were defeated, sought t oingratiato himself with the Turks. Further details show that horrible revelations wore made at the court-inar-tial. Ninoteen separate charges ot cruelty were, formulated. Numerous officers and men who were imprisoned at Bagtscho Camp gave evidence that Fratel lay in his bunk, smoking and reading, ' when men were dying of cholera wholesale owing to lack of attention end medicine. They begged Fratel to help them, but ho refused, though ho was lissistant-surgeon at the camp. Some gave evidence that they saw men kicked out of the hospital by ' the orderlies in Fratel's presence, and Fratel did not protest. He .even threatened to flog the British with a rawhide thong with which prisoners were beaten on the back or the. soles of the feet. There were no medical supplies on the trains carrying prisoners, no food or water for the sick, though others were given a loaf of bread. Of forty-six who were bundled into one train twenty died. The sick in' liospital had shocking sufferings. They were never washed; they were simply thrust into tents' to die. When dead they were flung into a socalled dead-house nearby filled with 'rubbish. Sometimes there were a dozen corpses there. British soldiers were flung in anyTiow, some naked and some in knickers.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. SURRENDER OFIGTORIOUS CAMP BRUTE DEMANDED (Rec. August 10, 11,5 p.m.) Copenhagen, August 8. It is reported from Berlin that the Entente Powers are already claiming the surrendei'.of those charged with violating International Laiw, commencing with the Gorman general Kruska, commander of the prison camp at Kasse-r, and tho accused's responsibility for the epidemic of typhus which caused the deaths of three thousand Frenchmen.—Aus.-N.Z. Gable At-sn.