LYON, FRANCE BARBIE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370062-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 28, 2010
• Sequence Number: 62
• Publication Date: May 26, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/28: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370062-4
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
26 May 1983
LYON, FRANCE
BARBIE
The Central Intelligence Agency has asked France for permission to
interrogate accused Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie in his Lyon prison cell,
French legal officials said Thursday.
The U.S. Justice Department announced March 15 it had opened an investigation
as to whether the Gestapo chief in wartime Lyon worked for U.S. intelligence
agents in Germany after World II and whether the Americans helped him to flee
Europe to Bolivia in 1951.
The allegations have been made by Nazi' hunter Beate Klarsfeld and her husband
Serge who tracked down Barbie in his Bolivian refuge.
In New York, the magazine Family Weekly reported in its June 12 edition that
Barbie worked for the CIA while living in Bolivia. Reporter Ernest Volkman
said Barbie was "reporting regularly to the CIA in La Paz."
Volkman quoted an unnamed former CIA official who said Barbie was recruited
by the intelligence agency because he was a close friend and security advisor to
Huth Banzer, who led a military coup in 1971 and seized control of Bolivia's
Love rumen t
He said, howver, that he did not know whether Barbie was actually on the
CIA payroll at the time, but said Barbie had become rich through his drug
connections and "didn't need the money.''
The magazine also said Barbie was, the mastermind of Bolivia's cocaine traffic
to the United States in the 1970s and became a colonel in the Bolivian secret
police and recruited 6,000 mercenaries into a paramilitary force to protect
Bolivian drug traffic operations.
Lyon legal officials speculated the CIA would be interested in Barbie's
connections in Bolivia with arms sales and drug traffic as well as in his
postwar past.
The officials said the justice ministry in Paris told the CIA the interview
could take place on two conditions.
Only 30 questions could be asked and they would have to be submitted to
Investigating Judge Christian Riss wno is gathering evidence from witnesses to
determine if Barbie can be tried on a charge of 'crimes against humanity.''
Barbie already has been tried in absentia for war crimes.
The second condition was that a French official fluent in English must be
present during the interrogation and that he can intervene at any time he
believes the interrogation is straying from the agreed upon questions.
The legal officials said these two conditions ironically are the same as
those demanded by the Americans in 1947 when the French government asked to
interrogate Barbie about his activities in Lyon during World War II.
wNrnvzED
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/28: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370062-4
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/28: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370062-4
At the time Barbie was installed in a U.S. intelligence office in Kempten
near Augsbourg, Germany, and was working for the Americans, the officials said.
The French government accepted the conditions and Barbie was interviewed by a
French military official in the presence of U.S. military officials who
understood French, the legal sources said.
The sources said the U.S. justice department has not yet replied to the
French conditions.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/28: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370062-4