SPY FOR GERMANY.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 October 1922, Page 5

SPY FOR GERMANY.

TREACHERY OF A FRENCHMAN. WORK FOR MANY YEARS* By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright. Received Oct. 29, 5.5 p.m. Paris, Oct. 28. Lucien Courtois, aged 73, who is deaf and almost blind, ha® been sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment on a charge of espionage. He has been a German spy since 1888. Before the war he posed as a staunch patriot, and his compatriots’ confidence helped him to serve his German paymaster, on whose pay he lived wholly for 34 year®. On the outbreak of war he ceased relations with Germany, but tho treachery was discovered as a result of the Germans’ failure to destroy confidential papers when driven out of Alsace Lor-1 raine, including a complete record of.. Courtois’ work. Th? charges datec . from 1912 to the outbreak of war, anal referred notably to information ing French troops in Morocco, denunciation of a French officer who discovered secrets of German aviation, and a description of the inhabitants of Metz and Haguenan having relations witn tne French. Several Frenchmen and Alsatians whom Courtois denounced wera imprisoned by the Germans. Courtois alleged that the. information, criven the Germans was false and valueless but a German report described him as a trustworthy spy. When lie was sentenced he exclaimed: “If I am "° dead when the sentence expires I shall be totally blind.”—Aus.-N.Z. Cable. Assn.