GERMAN GUN RUNNER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume LI, Issue 4040, 11 January 1930, Page 1

GERMAN GUN RUNNER.

VENTURE IN VENEZUELA. REBELS TAKEN IN SHIP. London, December 23. A story rivalling- any ol.' Joseph Conrad’s ofi’ John Masefield's sea (ales is expected when the exploits of the German gun-runner Falke, I*oß lons, are investigated in the law courts. The Falke was detained at Port <vf Spain, Trinidad, after she had taken a load of rebels to Venezuela in August last, following- a complaint by the crew that the captain backed up his orders with a revolver. The Falke was declared a private vessel bv the Venezuelan authorities. Three Hamburg merchants, Felix Pronzlau, Felix Kramarsky, and Captatin Zipplit, will be charged with forcibly kidnapping human beings, namely, the Falke’s crew, a crime which involves 15 years’ penal servitude. The accused, it is alleged, chartered the Falke for gun-running to Venezuela. The enterprise was frustrated by a battle between Government troops and the rebels landed from it he Falke, in which the rebel leader, , General ‘Delgado 'C':h a riband, was killed, his son fleeing with the remnant of the defeated party to Grenada Island. * The Falke is still detained at Port of Spain, but the crew, who did not receive the promised lavish wages, have been repatriated.