NEW CALEDONIAN MURDERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 95, 19 May 1909, Page 4

NEW CALEDONIAN MURDERS.

A REIGN OF CRIME. "THE BED BAND OP THE NORTH." Particulars of the New Caledonian murders briefly reported by cable are to hand by Australian papers. A eablei grain from Noumea, dated 14th April, i says:—A series of terrible crimes' was > revealed at the sessions just ended. The , perpetrators will be henceforth known as the "Red Band of the North." One of i the leaders of this band, a liberated Arab convict, Zermani, thok summarily shot : by a gendarme. Of the other live, Grimigui, a free man, son of an ox-convict, , was sentenced to twenty years' penal i servitude; Poisin, a free woman, to five years; Meunicr, a liberated cdnvict, to ten years; Salitacroce, a liberated convict, to twenty years' imprisonment, and Arrighi, a liberated convict, was condemned to death, the execution to take place on the public square of Npumea.

The scene of the crimes was i'oucinbout and Koae, an asrriciiltiiral district of the north-west, which has lately come into prominence, through its exportation of nickel ore. The industry has attracted to the district an unusual number of miners and workers engaged in the shipping operations'. The evidence at tjic trial disclosed tlic fact that there were three known victims. The first murder was instigated by the storekeeper, Grimigui, under the following circumstances:—A ticket-of-leave man named Vincent was a creditor of Grimigui for 8200 francs (£328), for which an arrangement had been made for the payment of 1000 francs per month ( £4O), which at due date Grimigui failed to pay. An arrangement had been made with the gang to do away with Vincent and steal his paper securities. The gang for this crime iwa* to lie paid 1500 francs ( £011). All this was explained by the woman Voisin, who participated in a dinner at which the murder was planned to take place. (She was paid 500 francs ( £2Ol as the first instalment of the price of her complicity. Vincent was shot during the burning of his house, which was constructed" of' grass.

A month afterwards a second man, named Franscln'ski, was disposed of in exactly the same maimer, and two days following a third man, an escaped convict, named Rostouoher, was shot whilst on the road. This man was known to have lived carefully, and was supposed to have saved a small sum of money. The gang, however, found on him only cheques, which he had got at the mine, and which could not be negotiated with safety.

The condemned man. Arrighi. a Corsican. had originally been transported to Xvw Caledonia for life for the .murder of his broHier-in-law, and, as in niaiiv cases of this' kind, he expiated his crime by twelve years' hard labor. Santacroee. who received twenty years' imprisonment for his participation in the crimes of the Eed Hand of the North, kept a small barber's shop, hut this appears to have, been only a cloak to his misdeeds, as he harbored and fed the Arab. Zermani. the chief assassin of the gang. It was proved tiliat .Santacroee was' the instigator of all the crimes. He was tried for receiving stolen property. Originally he had been transported to New Caledonia for twenty years for a murder committed in France.

Grimigui, who was sentenced to twenty year*' hard labor, is the son of an ex-convict, but seems to have borne a generally good character, and in his district was fairly well respected, but his books showed that he was' unable to pay the debt contracted with liis unfortunate victim, Vincent.