The Battalion
Thursday • October 9,
Former French Cabinet ministeF
Papon tried for past war crime
Retur
BORDEAUX, France (AP) — France put its
wartime past on trial today in the case of a for
mer Cabinet minister accused of war crimes
during World War II and then protected by late
President Francois Mitterrand.
Maurice Papon, a police official under the
collaborationist Vichy regime, allegedly or
dered the arrests of hundreds of Jews later
killed in the Holocaust.
“Papon, Maurice, 87 years old, retired,” he
responded to Judge Jean-Louis Castagnede,
who formally opened the trial and called in
the accused.
Papon entered a silent courtroom remod
eled to accommodate the crush of Holocaust
victims, their families, reporters and others.
He sat behind bulletproof glass as part of
tight security surrounding the trial.
His lawyer, Jean-Marc Varaut, pleaded for
him to be freed during the trial, a move civil
parties opposed.
“Detention may prove fatal,” Varaut argued.
“It would be detrimental to the client’s psycho
logical and physical health to be held in prison,
where he was greeted both inside and outside
with shouts of‘Death!’”
The proceedings were suspended after two
hours to deal with the request.
The judge appointed a panel of independent
medical experts to examine Papon and to decide
whether detention would be harmful. It wasn’t
known when the proceedings would resume.
The trial should shed light on how French
officials helped send thousands of Jews to Nazi
death camps in World War II.
The proceedings at the Palais de Justice are
expected to last three months and will include
“It would be detrimental to the
client’s (Papon) psychological and
physical health to be held in prison,
where he was greeted both inside and
outside with shouts of ‘Death!’”
JEAN-MARC VARAUT
MAURICE PAPON'S LAWYER
testimony from 140 witnesses.
Papon is a former police supervisor in the
Bordeaux region and the highest-ranking Vichy
official to stand trial in the persecution and de
portation of Jews. He surrendered to police
Tuesday evening.
A former budget minister under conserva
tive President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, Papon
is charged with complicity in crimes against
humanity for allegedly signing arrest orders
that led to the deportation of 1,690 Jews.
In all, France deported about 7{jj|
Jews, including 12,000 children, to
death camps during World War II;
about 2,500 survived.
Before the trial opened today, victtir
their families staged morning demon'
tions, one at the site of a formers
camp for deportees and another ataj
deaux synagogue.
At the transit site in the suburb of Merif
Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld joined withfc
groups in reading the names and agesofsi
al dozen Jewish infants and children allei
deported on Papon's orders. They alsoi
prayers for the dead.
At the gathering was Therese Stopnicki\
as a 6-year-old escaped the police rouii]
that captured her two sisters, ages 2 and5.i
died at Auschwitz.
“I’ve been having nightmares for
weeks,” she said. “Thinking I’ll be goingii
courtroom and breathing the sameairas^
man makes me nauseated.”
A poll published today indicated asp
French feelings about the trial, with57pe r
interested but 42 percent expressing little
interest, the daily Le Parisien said.
Still, 62 percent felt the trial was moreiffl
that of Papon: it was a way of judging“tlif t j
of the French government in the deportati j
Jews under the Vichy regime.”
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