TO CONCEAL A CRIME.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 57, 31 October 1912, Page 2

TO CONCEAL A CRIME.

INNOCENT SOLDIER TWICE SENTENCED. IN ORDER TO SCREEN OFFICERS. Twice has a French soldier been sentenced to prison for crimes of which he was perfectly innocent, hut at last he looks like getting justice. In 1909 a soldier serving a punitive term, in an Algerian regiment fell exhausted under his knapsack in the desert heat, and said he could not go on. The officer in charge, it is alleged, ordered two sergeants to make him get up and march. Salt was crammed into his mouth, and eventually the man is said to have been left to die. Emile Rousset, a soldier who had seen the incident, accused the officer and sergeants of the crime. Strong efforts were made to secure Rousset’s silence, but when lie persisted he was thrown into prison, and was kept there for two years, in spite of efforts by friends in France Eventually, General Rabid* was sent to Morocco to hold an inquiry. Tic came to the conclusion that the soldier had died a violent death, and ordered the release of Rousset, and the arrest of the lieutenant and the two sergeants. Last December, two days before their trial was to begin, Rousset was once more arrested, on a charge of murdering a comrade, and was sentenced by court-martial to twenty years’ penal servitude. Tliere-upon the lieu-

tenant and sergeants were sot at liberty.

Now the soldiers who gave evidence against Rousset have admitted that

they wore committing perjijry. Lieut. Paul Lacroix, who prepared the case against Rousset, lias admitted in a letter addressed to an officer belonging to the Constntine court-martial that ho had been deceived by the witnesses, and was now convinced of Rousset’s innocence.