NO RETRIAL FOR PAPON

Papon was Secretary General of the Bordeaux area during WWII. Although being in the non-occupied area of France, he signed orders to arrest over 1,500 Jews who were handed over to the Nazis and deported to extermination camps.

The role of Maurice Papon during the war was disclosed in 1980 by a French satirical weekly. After WWII, Papon went on serving the French administration, eventually becoming cabinet minister. After close to two decades of legal quibble, Papon faced a court in Bordeaux who finally condemned him in 1998 to ten years in jail. Less than a year after being jailed, Papon was released for "medical reasons". Papon's lawyers based their request for a retrial on a 2002 decision of the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights who stated that their client did not get a fair trial.