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| |  | | Maurice Papon | | | context : | Occupied France  | | judgement place : | France | | status : | Sentenced | | particulars : | Convicted of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity: responsible for the deportation of Jews between 1942 and 1944 | | position : | General Secretary for the prefecture of Gironde |
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| | | | Legal action was first taken against Maurice Papon on 8 December 1981in the name of a family of deportees who had died in Auschwitz.
A judicial investigation with regard to crimes against humanity was opened on 19 January 1983.
The Cour de Cassation (France’s highest appeal court) nullified the investigation on 11 February 1987 because of procedural mistakes. The Trial Court in Bordeaux was then ordered to carry out a new investigation.
The Trial Court remitted Maurice Papon to the Gironde Cour d’Assises (jury court)on 18 September 1996. He was taken into custody in the Gradignan prison on 7 October 1997, the day before his trial. He was however released for health reasons three days later and remained in freedom for the remainder of his trial.
The Gironde Cour d’Assisses sentenced him to ten years imprisonment on 2 April 1998. Papon was found guilty of complicity in illegal arrests and the arbitrary deprivation of liberty inflicted on Jews (more than 1500) who were deported in convoys to Auschwitz in the months of July, August, October 1942 and January 1944, when Papon was the General Secretary for the prefecture of Gironde. In the view of the Court, these crimes amounted to crimes against humanity.
The defendant appealed this sentence on 3 April 1998 and on 17 September 1999 applied for dispensation from his obligation to enter prison before the appeal trial at the Cour de Cassation. This obligation,provided for in Article 583 of the procedural code which had been applicable at the time of the offences, stated that a defendant who had neither obtained such a dispensation nor entered prison was not allowed to appeal against his decision. After the refusal of the dispensation, Maurice Papon fled to Switzerland on 21 October 1999.
Papon’s lawyers filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights. They claimed a violation of Art. 6 ECHR (right to a fair trial ) after the Cour de Cassation had refused to hear the defendant’s appeal. Papon was arrested in Switzerland and placed in detention in the prison of Fresne on the same day. Shortly afterwards he was transferred to the Prison de la Santé. The Cour d’Appel in Paris authorised his release at the age of 92 for health reasons (decision of 18 September 2002).
The European Court of Human Rights found France in breach of Art. 6 ECHR: “to refuse an appeal is a particularly grave sanction with regard to the right of access to a court guaranteed by Art. 6”.
The Cour de Cassation reopened the case and, on 11 June 2004, confirmed the conviction for aiding and abetting crimes against humanity and the sentence (ten years imprisonment) which had been pronounced on 2 April 1998. As soon as his appeal had been dismissed, Maurice Papon announced his intention to appeal to the review commission of the Cour de Cassation, referring to a decision by the Conseil d’Etat (supreme administrative court) of 12 April 2002 regarding the recognition of responsibility of the French State.
Maurice Papon died on 17 February 2007. | |    | | Trial Watch would like to remind its users that any person charged by national or international authorities is presumed innocent until proven guilty. | |  |  | | nationality : | | | France | | | date of birth : | | | 03.09.1910 | | | period of charges : | | | 06.1942 - 13.05.1944 | | | charges : | | | Crimes against humanity | | | profile last modified : | | | 30.11.2009 |
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