THE Charlie Hebdo massacre here on Jan 7 has revived an old debate in France. Numerous are those who want the death sentence to be restored to make an example of diehard criminals and terrorists.
The man behind the abolition of capital punishment in 1981 was Robert Badinter, at that time French minister for justice, who had earlier gained reputation as an opponent of death sentence while he was an advocate.
Older Pakistanis will certainly remember Badinter as one of the lawyers defending Zulfikar Ali Bhutto during his trial in 1978 under the martial law regime.
But more of that some other time, as our subject today is the first man in France who, despite being convicted for voluntary murder, managed to escape execution.
Read: Editor among 12 killed in attack on Paris weekly
At midday on Jan 30, 1976, Patrick Henry, 23 at the time, waited at the gate of a school in the north-eastern city of Troyes for an eight-year-old boy named Philippe Bertrand. “Your mother had no time to prepare your lunch today,” he told Bertrand, “…come with me and eat; I’ll bring you back to the school.”
Once in his apartment Henry tied up and gagged the boy by using rope and scotch tape. He then walked up to the nearby telephone booth and made an anonymous call to Bertrand’s parents: “I have your son and I’ll kill him if I am not paid one million francs. I’ll call you again tomorrow.”
The parents reported the matter to the police. Inquiries made around the area revealed that Henry was seen around the school entrance at the time the boy disappeared.
The police detained him for interrogation. He pleaded his innocence and convinced the authorities that he was picked up by mistake.
As he left the police station, Henry contacted the Troyes TV network which used to telecast a live programme in which people could talk about their problems. Invited, he spoke bitterly of the ‘tyrannical methods’ the police had used on him to make a ‘false confession’.
Police authorities were embarrassed, but more evidence filtered in during the coming days that Henry was seen with the boy on the day of his kidnapping.
Finally on Feb 17, policemen knocked on the door of Henry’s apartment. As they started looking inside the bathroom and his wardrobe closet, Henry kept lying quietly on his bed, smoking a cigarette. Then he blurted out: “No use wasting your time. What you’re looking for is under my bed.”
Under his bed was a trunk. When pulled out and opened, it revealed the body of little Bertrand. Henry calmly told the police that he had strangled the boy when his parents refused to pay the ransom money.
His crime was so heinous, his attitude so unrepentant that Troyes’ lawyers refused to take his case, but Badinter came from Paris to defend him. To everyone’s surprise and thanks to Badinter’s pleading, despite his confession Henry was only sentenced to life imprisonment.
After 24 years behind bars he was freed on May 15, 2001 for good conduct and was even paid 110,000 francs as salary for the various jobs he had done during his detention.
Henry’s first move after leaving the prison was to contact a publisher for his memoirs Do you have regrets? But following a plea by Philippe’s parents his earnings from the book were confiscated through a court order.
In June 2002 Henry was arrested again for theft in a hardware store. He was freed after paying a fine of 2,000 euros. He would soon find a job in a shop close to the Spanish border.
Following a tour to Morocco during a weekend Henry was arrested on his return during the night of Oct 5, 2002 when 10 kg of cannabis was discovered hidden in his baggage. He was handed over to the French authorities. His life-term reinstated, Henry keeps going on hunger strikes from time to time in order claim his freedom.
Meanwhile Badinter, today 86, has given a number of TV and press interviews since after the Charlie Hebdo tragedy. He strongly believes that given humane treatment, cold-blooded killers can be transformed into ideal citizens.
The writer is a journalist based in Paris.
Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2015
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