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Papon ''too ill'' to serve sentence

01 August 2002

The convicted war criminal, Maurice Papon, walked free from La Sante prison in September after serving only two and a half years of a ten year sentence for crimes against humanity. A Paris appeal court, in a decision described by his lawyer as "a moment for humanity" and "special treatment" by human rights organisations, ruled that the former cabinet minister's failing health qualified him for immediate release. Papon was sentenced after being found guilty in 1998 of deporting 1,600 Jews, whom he described as an "inconvenience", to Germany from Bordeaux. Many of his victims died in the Auschwitz death camp. Papon's crimes against humanity were not limited to the second world war. Appointed Paris police chief between 1954-1967, he oversaw the massacre of 200 Algerian protestors at a demonstration in 1961 (see Statewatch vol 9 no 2).
As the unrepentant Papon, who in March asserted that he has neither "remorse nor regrets" for his actions, posed for cameras on his release, families and organisations that had waited for nearly two decades for him to be brought to account greeted him with shouts of "assassin", "fascist" and "murderer". Outside his home protesters read out the names of his victims. Doubts about the extent of Papon's illness have been expressed by other detainees at La Sante as well as prison officers. Human rights organisations point out that Papon was the first of 1,764 prisoners in this category to benefit from reforms allowing the early release of critically ill prisoners.
Papon will now seek to reverse his conviction, following a decision at the European Court of Human Rights last July, which ruled that France had breached his right to an appeal against the original conviction. His appeal rights had been rescinded after he attempted to avoid prosecution by fleeing to Switzerland in 1999. Maurice Papon is the only high ranking French civil servant to be sentenced for collaborating with the nazi deportations.
Guardian 19, 20.9.02.