EXTRADITION CASE.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 November 1921, Page 3

EXTRADITION CASE.

FRENCH OFFICER INVOLVED. ESCAPES AFTER SENTENCE. By TelegraDlL—Press Assn.—Copyright. Sydney, Nov. 24. The hearing of a remarkable case has concluded, resulting in the court ordering the extradition of a French officer, Eugene Legros. The evidence disclosed that a. courtmartial at Hanoi sentenced Legros to twenty years’ penal servitude on charges of forgery and embezzlement of large sums of money by means of over-stating the pay due to soldiers on ; leave. Legros escaped from Hanoi in • October, and came to Australia. j The defence was that he never ; handled the money and only did what ihis superior officers told him, that they assisted him to escape and gave him ' money to do so, in order to hush up tne ’ matter. He further declared that one Jof the commandants of the Hanoi 1 depot committed suicide after the discovery that he had several hundred • thousand francs in the bank, for which ihe could not account. Legros declared ; that he came from Hongkong to Australlia on the strength of information that • a body had been found in a bog at • Hanoi which French officers had identi- , lied as his. Therefore he thought everything was right. The court granted Legros the right of appeal to the Supreme Court against his extradition.