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| |  | | Paul Touvier | | | context : | Occupied France  | | judgement place : | France | | status : | Sentenced | | particulars : | Found guilty of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity, sentenced to lifelong imprisonment in 1994, died in prison in 1996 | | position : | Local leader of the Second Service of the Militia in Lyon |
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| | | | Paul Touvier was sentenced to death in absentia for treason by the Cour de Justice in Lyon in December 1946. The following year he was convicted of conspiring with the enemy by the Cour de Justice in Chambéry and again sentenced to death. The period of prescription for these two death sentences elapsed in March 1967. Time limitations for crimes against humanity were, however, abolished in French jurisprudence in 1964. Thus, a new indictment became possible.
Touvier was however pardoned by President Pompidou in 1972, which led to anger and indignation amongst the families of his victims.
The first complaints for crimes against humanity were lodged in 1973. After several setbacks, the investigation was opened in 1979. Four judges investigated the case successively and it was only on 27 November 1981 that an arrest warrant was issued against Touvier. Paul Touvier was arrested on 24 May 1989 at the priory of Saint-Joseph de Nice, where he was in hiding under the name of Paul Lacroix. He was charged with aiding and abetting crimes against humanity and placed in detention. In a decision dated 29 October 1991, the investigating magistrate declared the charges inadmissible on counts number 2,5,6,7,8 and 9 (see Facts) and ordered the transmission of the case to the Chief Prosecutor with regard to the following counts:
a) Attempted murder of a group of Jewish people, committed on 10 December 1943 in Lyon
b) Aiding and abetting the murder of Victor Basch and Hélène Basch, born Furth, committed on 10 and 11 January 1944 in Caluire and Neyron
c) Aiding and abetting deprivation of liberty to the detriment of Jean de Filippies, a Resistance member who was later deported to a concentration camp
d) Aiding and abetting the murder of Glaeser, Krzyzkowski, Schlusseman, Ben Zimra, Zeizig, Prock and a man who could not be identified, committed on 28 and 29 June 1944 in Lyon and Rillieux
e) Aiding and abetting the murder of Lucien Meyer and Eliette Meyer, committed on 29 June 1944 in Lyon and Crépieux-les-Brosses
f) Aiding and abetting the deprivation of liberty to the detriment of Claude Bloch who was deported to a concentration camp, committed on 29 June 1944
According to the investigating magistrate, all these actions amounted to crimes against humanity according to article 6 c) of the statute of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.
On 13 April 1992, the investigating magistrate's inadmissibility order was confirmed by the Trial Cchamber of the Cour d’Appel in Paris. The chamber then went on to find that – apart from the crimes committed on 28 and 29 June in Rillieux – there were insufficient grounds to indict Touvier and so declared the charges inadmissible, thereby confirming the decision of the examining magistrate.
As far as the murders committed on 28 and 29 June in Lyon and Rillieux were concerned, however, the court found that there were sufficient grounds against Touvier, stating that he had participated in the crimes by giving orders and providing help and assistance. However in disallowing the qualification of these actions as crimes against humanity, the court ruled that the prescription period in which an action could be brought had elapsed.
An appeal was lodged with the Cour de Cassation which then nullified the Trial Chamber's decision, but only insofar as it concerned the murder of the seven Jewish people in Rillieux on 28 and 29 June 1944. All other considerations of the decision were expressly maintained.
The case was then referred to the Cour d’Assises in Yvelines, where trial was opened on 17 March 1994.
On 19 April 1994, Paul Touvier was found guilty of aiding and abetting a crime against humanity in Lyon on 28 and 29 June 1944. According to the judgment, Paul Touvier was “guilty of having knowingly been accomplice to a crime against humanity on 28 and 29 June 1944 in Lyon, on the one hand by giving instructions, and on the other hand by helping and assisting, with full knowledge and intent, the authors of premeditated murder on Glaeser Léo, Krzyzkowski Louis, Schlusselman Maurice, Benzimra Claude, Zeizig Emile, Prock Siegfried and one man who could not be identified. These murders were part of a concerted plan by a State which followed a policy of ideological hegemony, in this case Nazi Germany, against people singled out by reason of their belonging to a racial or religious group.”
Paul Touvier was sentenced to lifeimprisonment. He died in prison in 1996. | |    | | 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 : | | | 03.04.1915 | | | period of charges : | | | 10.12.1943 - 29.06.1944 | | | charges : | | | Crimes against humanity
Torture | | | profile last modified : | | | 21.02.2010 |
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| |  |  | Barbie, Touvier, Papon : Des procès pour la mémoire
Denis Salas, Jean-Paul Jean | |  | Dictionnaire historique de la France sous l'occupation, Tallandier, 2000
Michèle Cointet | |  | Dossiers d'accusation. Bousquet, Papon, Touvier : inculpés de crimes contre l'humanité
Bernard Lambert | |  | Memory, the Holocaust, and French Justice: The Bousquet and Touvier Affairs
Richard J. and Lucy Golsan | |  | Touvier, un crime français
Arno Klarsfeld | |  | Touvier, Vichy et le crime contre l'humanité
François Bédarida | |
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