Call grows in France for Barbie’s head

Press, 9 February 1983, Page 8

Call grows in France for Barbie’s head

NZPA-Reuter Lyons Demands are growing swiftly for the execution of the former Gestapo officer. Klaus Barbie, if French courts find him guilty of crimes against humanity during World War 11. Although the death penalty was abolished in France in 1981. influential politicians have called for changes in the law in case Barbie is convicted. He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment under present law.

Francois Leotard, secre-tary-general of the Opposition Republican Party, led by the former President. Valery Giscard d' Estaing. said that he hoped Barbie would be guillotined if found guilty. "Other countries have changed their law to meet this kind of situation. I hope that France will do likewise."

Ordinary people in Lyons evoked a parallel with Adolf Eichmann, who was kidnapped by Israel from Argentina in 1960. tried and hanged for his role in the Holocaust.

"The Israelis changed the law to deal with Eichmann. There is no reason why we cannot do the same." said a man outside the Lyons prison where Barbie is held in a tiny cell. Barbie, now 69. is accused by France of murdering or deporting thousands of Jews and resistance fighters in Lyons between 1942 and 1944, as well as killing the resistance leader. Jean Moulin.

The comparison with Eichmann was evoked last week by the Paris newspaper. "Le Matin" which said: “Barbie is to France what Eichmann was to Israel." ' Two death sentences passed on Barbie in absentia by French courts after he fled to Latin America have been cancelled by the Statute of Limitations.

How seriously the calls for a third such sentence are taken by the Government will become clear during the

long investigation before his trial next year.

President Francois Mitterrand's Socialist Government promised before its election to end capital punishment in France and did so as one of its first acts.

The idea that Barbie, said to be ailing, should be put to death was raised earlier by Senator Henri Caillavet. a member of the Leftist M.R.G. Party, which supports the Government.

The passions aroused by the memory of Barbie's wartime activities are still so strong in Lyons that many ordinary people do not hesitate to say that he should be executed without further trial. The case against execution was put by the rector of the Paris Academy. Helene Arweihler. who said on television: “There are those who enter into history through the gates of Hell and Barbie is one of them, like his master. But I am glad there is no death sentence.

“How appalling it would be to see Barbie's bloodied head roll in the basket of guillotine. It would make one feel almost sorry for him." Meanwhile in La Paz Parliamentary sources said that Bolivia's Chamber of Deputies had summoned two Ministers to explain on Friday the judicial reasons behind Barbie's deportation. The Foreign Minister. Mr Mario Velarde, and the Interior Minister. Mr Mario Roncal had been asked by an Independent Right-wing deputy. Carlos Valverde, to answer questions about the Barbie case, and the Chamber had approved his request.

Mr Roncal told reporters that Barbie was expelled for having infringed Bolivia's immigration regulations.

He fled to South America after Germany’s defeat in 1945 and for more than 30 years lived openly in Bolivia under the name Klaus Altmann. He was granted Bolivian citizenship under that name in 1957.