Court orders release of French 'collaborator'

A French appeals court today ordered the release of Maurice Papon, a former police chief jailed for his role in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps during the Second World War, his lawyer said.

Lawyer Jean-Marc Varaut said his client “would be freed by the end of the day”.

The 92-year-old Papon has been serving a 10 year prison sentence since 1999 for complicity in crimes against humanity. Papon, who went on to become budget minister after the war, was the highest ranking former French official sentenced for collaborating with the Nazis.

His six month trial, the nation’s longest, reopened painful memories about France’s wartime collaboration.

His lawyers have repeatedly asked that Papon be released from La Sante prison in Paris because of his age and ill health, and his case has sparked an ongoing debate in France about jailing the elderly.

The former Vichy official had triple coronary bypass surgery several years ago and had a pacemaker fitted in January 1999.

Lawyers for the former Vichy official filed a new request for his release over the summer, based on a new provision in French law that allows prisoners to be freed if two independent doctors agree they are suffering from a fatal illness, or their long term health is endangered by remaining behind bars.

A French judge rejected the request on July 24, which Papon’s lawyers then appealed against.

Another of Papon’s lawyers, Francis Vuillemin, said today: “It is a crucial moment in his life.

“It is a great victory. He is totally free to come and go,” the lawyer said.

Jewish groups have vehemently opposed Papon’s liberation.

Before the ruling, French President Jacques Chirac had turned down three requests to pardon Papon.

Papon, who led the Bordeaux area police during the Nazi occupation of France, was convicted in 1998 of complicity in crimes against humanity and jailed for 10 years for signing orders that led to the deportation of 1,690 Jews from Bordeaux from 1942 to 1944.

Most of those deported went on to Auschwitz, and all but a handful died.

Papon fled to Switzerland after his conviction, but was arrested and began serving his sentence in October 1999.

Last year, he wrote in a letter to France’s justice minister that he felt neither “regrets or remorse” for his acts.