Those that define justice are usually clever enough not to take it seriously.

In 1984, Klaus Barbie was put on trial for crimes committed while he was in charge of the Gestapo in Lyon between 1942 and 1944. As the trial opened Philip A. Potter, a Caribbean pastor, described Barbie in an interview in the February 11, 1984 Le Monde as the last product of the Enlightenment, which, he claimed, had produced four things: "the Industrial Revolution, which subordinated man to the machine; the founding of the United States on a declaration of independence where liberty and equality were applied to all men - except for blacks and Indians; - the French Revolution of 1789 where liberty, brotherhood, and equality were indeed claimed by the bourgeoisie; and imperialism based on racism".

At the trial Barbie received support not only from Nazi apologists like François Genoud, but also from leftist lawyer Jacques Vergès. He had a reputation for attacking the French political system, particularly in French colonial territories. In 1960, he extracted a confession of torture from Paul Teitgen, secretary general of the police in Algiers. Vergès' strategy at the trial was to use the trial to expose war crimes committed by France since 1945. Indeed, many of the charges against Barbie were dropped, thanks to legislation that had protected people accused of crimes under the Vichy regime and in French Algeria.

Vergès argued that the Nazi crimes were no different in nature from those committed by French imperialism, and thus the French courts were in no position to try Barbie. Nabil Bouaita, an Algerian lawyer, and Jean-Martin M'Bemba, a Congolese lawyer, joined the defense team. "Does crime against humanity only force emotion or merit commemoration if it hurt Europeans?" Vergès asked. B'Memba gave an account of how 8,000 Africans died building 140 kilometres of railway in French colonial Africa. Bouaita discussed Sabra and Shatila.

In the end, Barbie was found guilty, but Vergès' defense had changed the terms of debate about crimes against humanity. This has led to the term New World Negationism to describe the denial or trivialisation of crimes against humanity such as genocide and slavery that were perpetrated by Europeans in the New World (i.e. North and South America).

Barbie was sentenced to life imprisonment, but died in prison four years into his sentence at the age of 77.

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Barbie