"BLOOD MONEY."
BETRAYAL OF NURSE CAVELL. .. FRENCHMAN UNDER ARREST, The most notorious case of all of what are called the "blood-money trials"—the proceedings taken again9t French subjects in the districts once under German occupation who betrayed their compatriots to the Hun invader—ia that of jthe Frenchman Krein, who is charged, among other offences equally hideous, with having given the information to the Germans which led to the arrest and execution of Miss Edith Cavell.
The case against this man has been worked up with ian elaboration and shrewdness which bids fair to defeat all the elaborate precautions he and his supposed employers have .taken against his detection.
Krein, who was a porter at a religious establishment near Brussels before the war broke out, (afterwards .piayed a minor part in the execution of the elaborate scheme by which ,the "underground" passage was maintained for the escape of Allied subjects of all nationalities from Belgium. Not only is .there no scrap of documentary evidence to convict him of the horrible treachery wi,th which he is charged, but it can be put forward for his defence that he has suffered two terms of imprisonment at German hands, and has been fined on several occasions for minor offences.
But his Belgian associates began to notice how often disaster overtook plans in which lie was concerned, and though he invariably seemed to suffer from German harshness distrust of him grew, and, a final test of his straightness was devised.
In this case arrangements were made for smuggling oyt of .the country fl, refugee who only existed in the imaginations of the men and women who contrived this trap for the German agent. Krein entered upon his part in the adventure with his usual enthusiasm, and was given a number of misleading instructions and orders.
The result fully confirmed the suspicions of those who had laid the trap for Lim. The Germans attempted to arrest the non-exis.tent refugee, and were covered with confusion as a result.
Krein was actually detained in the very act of attempting escape across the Dutch frontier, and-'was handed over ,to the French authorities.
An investigation of the mass of evidence against him connected him with the case of Miss Edith Cavell, but should the charge fail. there are others which can be brought against him with more absolute certainty of his conviction. Krein is only one among a number of traitors who betrayed men and women of their own race for blood money.
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Taranaki Daily News, 21 July 1919, Page 9
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412"BLOOD MONEY." Taranaki Daily News, 21 July 1919, Page 9
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