FRANCE/SWITZERLAND: MAURICE PAPON FILE MATERIAL скачать в хорошем качестве

FRANCE/SWITZERLAND: MAURICE PAPON FILE MATERIAL

(7 Mar 2000) Natural Sound French President Jacques Chirac has rejected a plea for pardon by Maurice Papon, the former Vichy official convicted of complicity in crimes against humanity. Papon, 89, was found guilty for his role in the arrest and deportation of Jews from Bordeaux to Nazi death camps while he was a police supervisor in the Gironde region during the Second World War. A pardon was one of the few avenues left open to Maurice Papon, but now his plea has been rejected he may spend the rest of his life in jail. Papon, the former Vichy official who was convicted in April 1998 for his part in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps, is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence in France. He tried to escape trial by fleeing to Switzerland in October last year. Papon had asked the courts to exempt him from a mandatory night in jail before his sentencing due to ill health, but they refused. The ailing fugitive was picked up by Swiss authorities and put in a Bern hospital before being transferred to France. The 89-year-old is the highest ranking member of the pro-Nazi Vichy regime to be convicted for complicity in crimes against humanity. His lawyers filed a request for a presidential pardon for medical reasons on December 23 last year, two months after France's highest court, the Court of Cassation, rejected Papon's final appeal. Papon's lawyers said they were surprised to hear the news from the French media. They are now planning to appeal French President, Jacques Chirac's decision before the European Court of Human Rights. Papon underwent surgery in January to implant a pacemaker after undergoing triple bypass surgery several years ago. It's widely believed that Papon had many political friends in high places lobbying hard for him to be pardoned, but that his attempt to flee French justice ruined his chances. After the war, Papon held many important government positions. In the mid-1950s, he was named Paris Police Chief by the then president, Charles de Gaulle. In 1996, Chirac, a Gaullist, became the first French leader to condemn the Vichy regime - at the time the legitimate power running the nation - for its systematic persecution of Jews living in France during the war. In June 1940, the French National Assembly unanimously voted to give Vichy full powers. It immediately went on to draft a series of anti-Jewish measures which ultimately led to the arrest and deportation of 76-thousand Jews, including 12-thousand children, from France to Nazi death camps. About 2-thousand-500 survived. Papon's six-month trial - the nation's longest criminal trial - forced France to take a long, painful look at how French officials willingly collaborated with the Nazis occupying France. Documents presented at the trial showed that Papon was zealous in carrying out orders to track down and arrest dozens of Jewish children who had been scattered in safe homes around Bordeaux. He constantly denied the accusations, saying he helped to free incarcerated Jews from a transit camp outside Bordeaux and worked on behalf of the French Resistance. No proof was ever found of his claims. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...