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French Judge Nixes Papon Request
A Paris judge turned down a new request to free Maurice Papon, an aging former Vichy official imprisoned for sending French Jews to Nazi death camps, his lawyers said Wednesday. Papon's lawyers have repeatedly tried to have their 91-year-old client released, arguing that his imprisonment is cruel and inhuman because of his age and bad health. Papon wears a pacemaker and has a history of heart problems. Papon filed his most recent request 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. Lawyers Jean-Marc Varaut and Francis Vuillemin said in a written statement Wednesday that they had appealed the decision. Papon, who headed the Bordeaux area police under the pro-German Vichy government, was found guilty in 1998 of signing orders that led to the deportation of 1,690 Jews from 1942-44. He fled to Switzerland after the conviction, but was arrested and began serving his sentence in October 1999. During World War II, some 76,000 Jews, including 12,000 children, were deported from France; only 2,500 survived. French President Jacques Chirac has turned down three requests to pardon Papon. The European Court of Human Rights also has rejected the argument that incarcerating such an elderly man constitutes ``inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,'' which is banned under European convention. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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