PRISONERS ESCAPE.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 May 1922, Page 5

PRISONERS ESCAPE.

A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR. TWO DEPORTED FRENCHMEN. ( By Telegraph.—Press Aasn. —Copyright. Received May 15, 7.15 p.m. Sydney. May 15\ The escape of two French prisoners from the steamer Elkanara, while sne was coaling at Newcastle, is mysterious. They disappeared during the night, though apparently they were securely confined with a guard over them. The steamer departed for New Caledonia, and subsequently the two escapees were captured on board a ship which was scheduled to leave Newcastle for Durban to-day.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. Received May 15, 9.5 p.m. Sydney, May 15. The two French prisoners who escaped from the Elkantara were tried at the Newcastle Court' for vagrancy and remanded till the 22nd inet. Both have been banished for life by the French Government. One, Tulop, was an airman in the same force as Carpentier. He was also a boxer at Paris, having beaten Criqui, who recently visited Australia. He refused to fight against the Bolsheviks on the Servian front and went to Spain. Ho was charged with desertion op returning to France. He is an undergraduate and has left a wife and children in France. The other prisoners, Sziber. is a Roumanian. He was banished on a charge of obstructing the French authorities when the occupation of Hungary commenced after the armistice. He declared he was engaged in military police duties at a railway station in Hungary and refused to hand over the railway facilities to the invading army. It is thought France will probably commence extradition proceedings and friends of the prisoner* ,in Newcastle and Sydney are suggesting an appeal for funds to fight the case.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. Two 'French prisoners, at first erroneously described as Bolsheviks deported from France, arrived in Australia on board a French steamer. Later, it was explained that they were not Bolsheviks, but persons convicted of military offences in France, and sentenced to life imprisonment at New Caledonia. At Newcastle they escaped from the steamer on which they were imprisoned.