|
Former French General on Trial for Algeria Torture Crimes
PARIS, Nov 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A former French general went on trial Monday on charges of "apologizing for war crimes," tied to his published descriptions of tortures and summary executions he and other French military committed during Algeria's 1954-1962 struggle for independence.
The three-day trial against General Paul Assauresses is expected to feature testimony from an array of historians, former military officers and judicial experts, news agencies reported.
Aussaresses, 83, wrote a memoir confessing his role in the death of prisoners during the Algerian war of independence.
He faces a maximum penalty of five years in jail and a 300,000 franc - 45,000 euro - fine, BBC's online news service reported
"What I did were not reprisals, I was not seeking to punish the people I arrested, those facing me," he told the court. "It was a matter of stopping actions which were being prepared for deeds causing the deaths of my fellow French and Algerian citizens."
General Aussaresses' book, Special Services, Algeria 1955-1957, caused an uproar when it came out in May because of its frank and entirely unrepentant tone.
It has been widely believed that atrocities were committed during the war, but the general's lack of remorse shocked the country. The book became an instant best seller.
The general described how he personally took part in the torture and killing of 24 Algerian prisoners - a practice, he said, that was sanctioned at the highest level because of the need to extract urgent information from the enemy.
Human rights groups in Paris wanted to prosecute General Aussaresses for war crimes, but that was impossible because of a 1968 amnesty relating to the Algerian war.
Instead, they have brought an action under a rarely invoked law that makes it a punishable offence to try to justify war crimes.
General Aussaresses has said he will not be constrained to apologize for actions that took place in an entirely different moral environment, BBC reported.
"I had behind me 15 years of military service, during which I never refused an order," said Aussaresses Monday. "Certainly, officers may have disobeyed - at that point they were told: Get out, you will no longer be an officer."
In his book, he argues he was merely putting on record a historical fact. Speaking on the eve of his trial, he repeated his view that torture was an unfortunate necessity.
The aging general, on trial for "complicity in justifying war crimes," entered the Paris court Monday flanked by his two editors. Olivier Orban, head of the Plon publishing house, and Xavier Batillat, of Perrin publishers, faced related charges, news agencies reported.
Aussaresses' lawyer, Gilbert Collard, said in an interview Sunday that his client was in good spirits and "ready to defend himself" at the trial, which ends Wednesday.
Aussaresses has repeatedly said that he felt no remorse or guilt for his actions during the 1957 Battle of Algiers, a pivotal moment of France's brutal war with Algeria. The 1954-1962 war ended with Algeria's independence from France after 132 years of colonial rule.
In an interview published in Monday's Le Parisien newspaper, Aussaresses claimed the war was "a period where we were fighting against terrorists. Torture was useful and necessary."
"I am entering this trial in serenity," he was quoted as saying.
The lawsuit was filed by France's League of Human Rights, which targeted the general for justifying war crimes in hopes that the charge would not fall under a 1968 general amnesty for "all infractions" committed during the war. Several other human rights groups are civil parties to the lawsuit.
Shortly after the publication of his book, the decorated general was stripped of his army rank, and President Jacques Chirac revoked Aussaresses' Legion of Honor.
In France, passions remain high over the Algerian war, which is considered the most troubling chapter in the country's recent history. Only in 1999 did France officially call the combat a war. It was previously referred to only as "operations to maintain order."
|
