Paul Touvier - Fugitive

Fugitive

Beginning in 1957, Monsignor Charles Duquaire, secretary to the Archbishop of Lyons, began gathering information and advocating a pardon for Paul Touvier.

By 1967, Touvier's death sentence was barred based on a 20-year statute of limitations. According to Morgan, "Touvier could now have surfaced, but preferred to stay in hiding, awaiting his hoped-for pardon. For the statute of limitations did not affect les peines accessoires, or secondary sentences, imposed by the law, which can include the loss of rights as a citizen, the confiscation of property and lifetime banishment from the area where the crimes were committed. For Touvier, les peines accessoires meant that he could not live with his wife and children in Chambery, which he considered home; he could not inherit property from his father; he could not legally marry his wife or give his children his name. He had gotten away with his life, but he was still a nonperson."

In December 1969, Monsignor Duquaire's dossier, which included a five hour taped interview with a fugitive Touvier, was handed over to the pardons commission. According to Morgan, "In January 1970, Jacques Delarue, an expert on the Occupation and a commissioner of the Police Judiciaire, a sort of French Federal Bureau of Investigation, was asked by the Minister of Justice to investigate the pardon request and talk to the people who had written testimonial letters. Now a youthful-looking 70 and living in a Paris suburb, Delarue recalls that Monsignor Duquaire came from Rome to see him and said, You must understand that Touvier is one of the wounded who has been left on the battlefield. Delarue responded, ' 'Monsignor, you have been duped. Touvier has blood on his hands.' But, he said, Duquaire 'wouldn't listen. He said, "I don't want to know what he did during the Occupation."' Delarue's report concluded that a pardon for Touvier would provoke public outrage. In November 1971, however, to Delarue's consternation, Pompidou went ahead and granted the pardon, keeping the news out of the papers. Pompidou is said to have remarked: 'This is an old story. I'll sign.'"

President Pompidou's pardon caused a public outcry, especially among veterans of the French Resistance and the nation's Jewish community. On July 3, 1973, Georges Glaeser filed a complaint against Touvier in the Lyon Court, charging him with crimes against humanity. There was no statute of limitations for such charges. Glaeser accused Touvier of the 1944 massacre at Rillieux-la-Pape. After being indicted, Touvier disappeared again.

According to Morgan, "During the 10 years between the pardon and the indictment, while the suits filed by the victims' families moved through the courts, Touvier returned to the monastery circuit. Documents found by the gendarmes who later arrested him showed that he had stayed in more than 20 religious communities. While Touvier plugged into the remains of the old Catholic right, he also was aided by a number of credulous, apolitical priests. He would carefully tailor his story to suit his audience. To the unreconstructed old guard, he presented himself as the victim of a social order that persecuted him because he was a Catholic anti-Communist. His line was, 'I was in the Milice to defend Christianity against Communism.' To the others, he came across as a breast-beating, repentant sinner, hounded by the State and asking for compassion. So some of the priests who helped him were politically motivated; others acted from the belief in the right to asylum and the possibility of redemption. But once he was indicted for crimes against humanity, Touvier became an embarrassment to the Church, which was suddenly seen as the accomplice of a war criminal. The publicity was so damaging that the Diocese of Lyons released a statement saying that Monsignor Duquaire had been 'acting on his own initiative.'"

Years of legal maneuvering ensued until a arrest warrant for Touvier was issued on November 27, 1981.