Former general faces Algeria charges

Aussaresses: Book has opened deep wounds

PARIS, France -- A former French general is being investigated on suspicion of justifying war crimes committed during Algeria's war of independence.

Paul Aussaresses, a former intelligence chief, said in a newly published book that he committed or ordered his men to torture and summarily execute prisoners captured during the 1957 Battle of Algiers.

State Prosecutor Jean-Pierre Dintilhac on Thursday announced that Aussaresses could not be directly investigated for war crimes but would be investigated over the lesser offence, linked to French press laws, of justifying war crimes.

"The acts for which General Aussaresses has acknowledged responsibility and which happened during the Algerian conflict are clearly war crimes," the prosecutor said in a statement.

"They are thus ... covered by the amnesty resulting from the law of July 31, 1968."

The French parliament passed a general amnesty in 1968 for "all infractions" committed during the war.

And the prosecutor's office said the claims could not be classified as crimes against humanity because they preceded the 1994 French legal reform which limited the charge to offences committed during World War II, or after 1994.

A conviction of justifying war crimes carries a maximum four-year jail term, although sentencing in past cases has tended to be symbolic.

In his book, Service Speciaux Algerie 1955-1957, published in May, Aussaresses said the government of the day had known of, and approved, the use of torture and extrajudicial killings.

There have long been suspicions that atrocities were carried out during the 1954-1962 war that ended with Algeria's independence from France after 132 years of colonial rule.

Aussaresses' claims and largely unrepentant stand have reopened deep wounds and revived debate over whether those responsible for such acts can, and should, be brought to trial.

Several human rights groups have filed complaints against Aussaresses over the revelations which may be investigated independently.

President Jacques Chirac has already ordered Aussaresses to be stripped of the Legion d'honneur, one of France's most prestigious orders of merit, and asked the Defence Ministry to propose disciplinary measures.

Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin have so far resisted pressure for any formal French act of apology and calls for a parliamentary commission of inquiry.

"Inhuman and barbaric acts were carried out by both sides, even if each side tended for too long to deny its own," Jospin said in parliament on Wednesday.

He said French soldiers who committed abuses "deserve to be stigmatised," but veterans "who simply did their duty deserve, 40 years on, to be saluted, and I salute them."

Aussaresses meanwhile has softened some of his claims.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press news agency, he repeated that while he had ordered torture, it "doesn't mean that I myself tortured."

The general's daughter, Helene Aussaresses, suggested in an interview published on Thursday in Le Monde that her father's assertions "make us question his judgment and his mind."

She said her father had earlier "sworn and repeated that he had enough informers ... not to need to resort to torture."