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Former French Official Again Indicted for Role In Deportation of Jews
Reuters PARIS -- A former French minister has been indicted for "crimes against humanity" for his alleged role in the deportation of Jews from southwest France during World War II, the Nazi-hunter, Serge Klarsfeld, asserted Tuesday. He said that Maurice Papon, a former budget minister under President Valery Giscard d'Estaing and Paris's longest-serving postwar police chief, was secretly indicted three months ago. The indictment of Mr. Papon, who became a respected figure in the French political establishment after the war, reopens debate on French wartime collaboration with the Nazis. Lawyers for the families of about 1,690 Jews from the Bordeaux area, who were deported to concentration camps from 1942 to 1944, have accused the authorities of seeking to bury the case, which first surfaced seven years ago. "Klaus Barbie was indicted in the most public manner in Lyon, why is a different treatment reserved for Maurice Papon?" a Bordeaux lawyer, Gerard Boulanger, asked on French television, refer- ring to the former Gestapo chief who was imprisoned for life on the same charges last year. Mr. Papon, 79, has always denied aiding the arrest of Jews and said he helped Jews escape Nazi oppression. He has blamed allegations of collaboration on leftist political opponents. About 75,000 Jews were deported to Nazi death camps during the four-year German occupation of France, nearly a quarter of the country's Jewish population. Almost all of them were arrested by French rather than German police. Mr. Klarsfeld, the lawyer who went after Barbie in exile in Bolivia, said the delay showed the judiciary "cares more for the tranquillity of the former minister than for the morale of the families." "The truth that he was indicted was hidden," said Mr. Klarsfeld, who is representing some of the deportees' families. Under French law, charges need not be made public until a judge decides to bring a case to trial. However magistrates normally publicize charges soon after they are brought. Mr. Papon was secretary-general of the Bordeaux prefect's office, the administrative headquarters of the region, during the dates covered by the indictment. It is not the first time Mr. Papon has been indicted for alleged complicity in the deportations. He was indicted twice in 1983 and 1984 but the charges were dropped last year when the Appeal Court nullified the whole investigation for technical reasons. |
