Bordeaux - The trial of the accused French Nazi collaborator, Mr Maurice Papon, resumes today after a three-week delay, with doubts mounting about his defence claim that he saved Jews from the Holocaust.
Mr Papon (87), who spent 16 days in hospital with double pneumonia, will be back in the dock when a surprise witness gives what could be crucial evidence about whether he ordered 1,560 Jews to be arrested and sent to wartime death camps.
Mr Papon fell ill on November 14th, just when Ms Christiane Hippolyte, a secretary in the Bordeaux region's Service for Jewish Questions when he ran it in 1942-1944, was due to start giving her testimony.