Where is Paul Touvier?
The French Nazi collaborator who headed up the intelligence division of Lyon’s wartime Vichy regime militia was freed from jail last year. Shortly afterward, travel restrictions were dropped when a Paris court dismissed the charges of war crimes leveled against him.
However, an appeals court in Versailles last week overturned the earlier decision, ruling that Touvier, 78, must indeed stand trial for ordering the 1944 execution of seven Jewish hostages as a reprisal for the killing of a Vichy regime official.
When the Versailles court made its decision, it did not order his imprisonment, given his age and health. He reportedly suffers from cancer.
But Touvier’s trial and his whereabouts suddenly took on added significance this week, after another Frenchman accused of war crimes, Rene Bousquet, was shot dead by a deranged writer on Tuesday.
No Frenchman has ever stood trial in France for crimes against humanity, although the German Gestapo commander Klaus Barbie, who supervised roundups and tortures in France, was convicted of such crimes in a French court and sentenced to life imprisonment.
French Jewish leaders have long urged that Touvier, Bousquet, and Maurice Papon — who ordered the deportation of Jews from Bordeaux — be put on trial, exposing the French Vichy regime’s role in the Holocaust.
With Bousquet’s assassination, Touvier’s trial may take on added importance, observers said this week.
But where is Touvier?
Touvier’s only obligation is to spend the night before his trial — if there is a trial — in a jail to be designated, said a spokesman of the French Ministry of Interior.
TOUVIER’S LAWYER DENIES CLIENT IS MISSING
According to the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Touvier left France a few weeks ago for Canada’s Quebec.
Other reports, by the French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine, say that Touvier, a connoisseur of the various convents and abbeys of Europe, may have vanished in one of his favorite Catholic hideouts.
All these rumors have been completely denied by one of Touvier’s lawyers, Guillaume de Maignan.
De Maignan told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “some people close to the plaintiffs against Touvier are taking advantage of Rene Bousquet’s assassination to have Touvier arrested again and put back in jail.”
“Touvier hasn’t left France, he hasn’t changed a pebble in his regular way of life since he left jail last year. He is living at the same place, he goes on meeting with his relatives, friends, and lawyers.
“Perhaps some of the people who peep on Mr. Touvier’s life didn’t see him go out of his home and spread the rumor, but Touvier is in France, where he has always been ever since he was freed from jail,” De Maignan said.
De Maignan did not, however, reveal his client’s address and it was not possible to independently confirm Touvier’s whereabouts.
Despite rumors that Touvier suffers from cancer, his lawyer said Touvier’s health is satisfactory and that he leads a “normal” life.
Reaction to Bousquet’s sudden murder has meanwhile continued, with Jewish leaders lamenting the fact that Bousquet’s trial could not now take place.
France’s Chief Rabbi Joseph Sitruk proposed on French television that Bousquet be tried posthumously. But this is remote, as the law stipulates that death ends the prosecution.
Serge Klarsfeld, who led the fight to bring Bousquet to trial for the past 15 years, said Touvier’s crimes pale compared to Bousquet’s.
Even Papon, who was secretary-general of the Bordeaux area Vichy administration, is of far less importance than Bousquet.
“Papon wasn’t close to the first circle of policy-makers, like Bousquet,” said Klarsfeld.
Police have formally charged Bousquet’s self-confessed killer, Christian Didier, 49, with murder. The obscure writer, who called a news conference Tuesday to announce his crime, was also identified by Bousquet’s valet and janitor as the man who entered Bousquet’s apartment and shot him dead.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
