FRANCE: French Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon (93) lost an appeal for a retrial yesterday, but won another chance in three months' time to have his conviction for sending Jews to death camps during the second World War overturned.
A legal commission rejected the appeal by the former government minister, who was freed on health grounds in 2002, but ordered France's highest court to hold a technical legal review of his sentence in May.
Legal experts said the review could lead to a retrial for Papon because of a technicality but was more likely to rule it out.
"It is very unlikely he will succeed," one expert said.
Papon was found guilty in 1998 of complicity in crimes against humanity.
He was freed on health grounds after serving three years of a 10-year sentence he began only in 1999.