The Foreign Minister of Bolivia indicated today that his country was not trying to protect Klaus Altmann, a German businessman in La Paz believed to be Klaus Barbie, a wanted Nazi war criminal. Dr. Mario Gutierrez, who is in Israel to sign technical and agricultural cooperation agreements on behalf of Bolivia, told newsmen that the Bolivian Supreme Court has not exhausted the processes which could lead to the extradition of Altmann-Barbie to France.
Dr. Gutierrez said the Supreme Court judges sitting on the Barbie case were all appointees of the two previous Bolivian regimes which he described as leftist. He said President Hugo Banzer Saurez could have replaced them but chose not to in order to avoid suspicion of partiality in the Barbie case. Barbie, who was Gestapo chief in Lyons during World War II, is wanted in France for the deportation of Jews and the murder of a resistance leader.
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