Paris court asked to clear man of murder 82 yrs on

By Staff
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PARIS, Oct 5 (Reuters) A public prosecutor today asked France's top court on Thursday to clear a man of murder posthumously for the first time in its history, more than 80 years after he was convicted of the crime and sentenced to forced labour for life.

Guillaume Seznec was found guilty in 1924 of killing his friend Pierre Quemeneur despite the fact the police were never able to produce the body, the murder weapon or even a witness.

Seznec always proclaimed his innocence and after more than 20 years of forced labour in sweltering French Guyana was finally pardoned by General Charles de Gaulle in 1946.

However, he was never absolved of the crime in what many French believe was one of the great miscarriages of justice of the last century.

''It is appropriate to give him the benefit of the doubt and clear his memory of guilt,'' prosecutor Jean-Yves Launay told reporters as he left the special session of the Cour de Cassation which was presided over by 30 judges.

Court sessions of this kind are rare but if the court were to clear Seznec, a series of similar requests to find convicted murderers innocent after their death could be filed.

The judge in charge of presenting the case to the court said a recent investigation tended to confirm the case against Seznec, who died in a road accident in 1954, and added that the new elements required to clear him were too hazy.

The prosecution in the original murder trial argued that Seznec killed his friend to take over his house, and experts found that a contract providing for Quemeneur to sell him his property at a very low price was a fake.

The policeman who led the case, Inspector Pierre Bonny, went on to be a Nazi collaborator and was executed in December 1944. Shortly before his death he reportedly admitted that Seznec was innocent and that he had planted evidence on him.

Seznec's family say police framed him to cover up the involvement of high-ranking officials in selling American cars left behind after World War One to the Soviet Union.

''A lot of people had an interest in suppressing the scandal,'' said prosecutor Launay, backing the family theory.

''It is necessary that the judicial institution, which like all human institutions is not infallible, agrees to put things right when it has made a mistake,'' he added.

The court is expected to examine the case for several weeks.

REUTERS DKB BD2301

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