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Witness History: Devil's Island

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11/08/2015 GMT

Devil's Island

BBC World Service - Witness History, Devil's Island

A convict's experience of the notorious French penal colony in South America.

Bashir Saoudi recalls his father's experience of Devil's Island, the notorious French penal colony in South America, which closed in 1953.

A convict's experience of Devil's Island, the notorious French penal colony in South America, which closed in 1953. Thousands of inmates died from disease, mistreatment, or trying to escape the network of prisons in the jungles and islands of French Guiana. Bashir Saoudi tells the story of his father, Kaci, an Algerian who was imprisoned there in the 1930s. Bashir Saoudi is the co-author of The Guillotine Choice which was published in 2014.

(Photo: 673 convicts in France being escorted to a ship bound for Devil's Island in 1935. Credit: AP)

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