Accused Says Minister Backed French Plot

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30055, 13 February 1963, Page 13

Accused Says Minister Backed French Plot

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

PARIS, February 11. The alleged leader of terrorists who ambushed President de Gaulle last August claimed today that the French Finance Minister, Mr Valery Giscard-d’Estaing, supported the organisers of the plot.

Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry, a former lieutenant - colonel, aged 36, was giving evidence at the trial by a special military Court of 15 "French Algeria” extremists charged with taking part in the ambush.

He claimed that two, and probably three, Gaullist Ministers had been connected with the “National Council of the Resistance,” the alleged organisers of the ambush. But he named only Mr Giscardd’Estaing. He claimed that in July or August, 1961, Mr Giscardd’Estain became connected with a Secret Army Organisation network in Paris. He was listed under “No. 12B.” "At that time, there were contacts between O.A.S. leadership and a group of finance inspectors.” Bastien - Thiry said. "I know that the O.A.S. asked for certain services and that certain information from Cabinet meetings was passed on.

“Giscard-d’Estaing has a great deal of talent and ambition. We thought he could become the Premier of a national government after the arrest of de Gaulle.” Bastien-Thiry insisted that the plan was to “arrest”

President de Gaulle and bring him to trial before a military court—<not to assassinate him. A villa had been prepared at Versailles, 15 minutes drive from the scene of the ambush in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart.

Everything was ready there to hold President de Gaulle “in conditions better than we have at the Sante prison” pending his trial. Bastien-Thiry said a C.N.R. court had sentenced President de Gaulle to death in his absence an July 3—the day the President declared Algeria independent. Villa Ready

“The C.N.R. planned to bring General de Gaulle to trial for high treason in a coup d’etat for the return to Republican legality,” BastienThiry said. Bastien-Thiry said General de Gaulle was to have been seized “willy nilly” and taken to a villa near Versailles. There were seven charges against the President, including “Algerian genocide.” The commando had fired their machine-guns six to seven seconds too late because they had trouble seeing the colonel, waving a newspaper

from 350 yards away to give the signal in the gathering dusk as the President drove through Petit Clamart to Villacoublay military airport. “We were fully informed oi General de Gaulle’s movements every time he left or returned to the Elysee Palace. The commando was ordered to fire at the tyres of the presidential car, and to arrest or forcibly kidnap General de Gaulle," he said.

“A doctor was in attendance in the villa in case the general was injured by a stray bullet or by his escort firing back at us,” BastienThiry said. Throughout the hearing Bastien-Thiry referred to General de Gaulle as the “de facto Head of the State."

He told his military judges: “We are here before you with no guilt complex.” The trial, now in its third week, got under way after a fortnight of legal wrangling on procedure and the threeyear suspension from the bar of Maitre Jacques Isorni, one of the defence lawyers, for “serious contempt of a Magistrate in Court."