France A Verdict on the Butcher

Throughout his eight-week trial on charges of crimes against humanity, Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo commander of Lyons during World War II, showed no sign of remorse and no great interest in defending himself. Except for three days at the beginning of the proceedings and two forced appearances in order to be identified by witnesses, Barbie exercised his right under French law to boycott the courtroom. The ailing Barbie, 73, seemed almost indifferent to the outcome of the trial. Instead of facing his accusers, he remained in his three-cell complex in St. Joseph prison.

But on the last day of his trial, the accused was ordered to be present. Looking drawn and tired, he stood expressionless last week while Presiding Judge Andre Cerdini read the verdict that had been reached after more than six hours of deliberation by nine jurors and three judges. The former SS officer was found guilty on all 341 counts of crimes against humanity. His sentence, the maximum, was life imprisonment.

As the verdict was read, a spontaneous burst of applause and cheers broke out from the spectators jammed together at the back of the courtroom. From outside in the street came more shouts of joy and the sound of cars honking. When Barbie's lawyer, Jacques Verges, appeared on the steps of the courthouse, an angry mob began forming, and from the crowd came shouts of "SS!" and "Assassin!" Police quickly moved to protect the lawyer, who had challenged not only France's moral right to try Barbie but also the testimony of his victims.

The outcome of the trial had never been in doubt. The evidence against Barbie was overwhelming. From the testimony of French Jews and Resistance fighters, Barbie's chief victims, came a portrait of a particularly brutal fanatic with a taste for sadism. In his final, calm but chilling summing up, Prosecutor Pierre Truche said, "This is not the trial of a German but of a torturer. It is of a man still loyal to his Nazi ideals."

While acknowledging that Barbie was a comparatively minor figure in the Nazi hierarchy, Truche accused him of cruelty far beyond the line of duty. "Was it necessary to strike Madame Lise Lesevre 19 times when he already knew she was in the Resistance?" the prosecutor demanded. "Was it necessary to deport her husband and son, who were not in the Resistance?" Truche pointed out that Barbie did not need to arrest 44 Jewish children in one school and have them shipped to Nazi death camps. Nor was it necessary to send 650 people, including a dozen children, to camps on the second-to-last convoy to leave France. Said Truche: "A crime against humanity presupposes a plunge into inhumanity. This plunge you have experienced here with these men and women, who have told us what they never dared tell those closest to them."