Trial and Execution
After a lengthy pre-trial process, Djandoubi eventually appeared in court in Aix-en-Provence on charges of torture-murder, rape and premeditated violence on 24 February 1977. His main defence revolved around the supposed effects of the amputation of his leg six years earlier which his lawyer claimed had driven him to a paroxysm of alcohol abuse and violence, turning him into a different man.
On 25 February he was condemned to death. An appeal against his sentence was rejected on 9 June, and in the early morning of 10 September 1977, Djandoubi was informed that he, like the child murderers Christian Ranucci (guillotined on 28 July 1976) and Jérôme Carrein (guillotined on 23 June 1977), did not receive a reprieve from President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Shortly afterwards, at 4:40 a.m., he was executed by guillotining.
While Djandoubi was the last person executed in France, he was not the last condemned. But no more executions occurred after capital punishment was abolished in France in 1981 following the election of François Mitterrand.
Read more about this topic: Hamida Djandoubi
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