French general faces dishonour over child porn

A five-star French general convicted of downloading thousands of child pornography images is to be stripped of his rank and awards, and be expelled from the army, the defence ministry said on Thursday.

Paris: A five-star French general
convicted of downloading thousands of child pornography images
is to be stripped of his rank and awards, and be expelled from
the army, the defence ministry said on Thursday.

General Raymond Germanos, 69, who holds the highest
rank in the French army and served as chief military adviser
to two defence ministers in the 1990s, was given a 10-month
suspended jail sentence on Tuesday.
"It is clear that the adequate sanction from the
minister`s point of view would be expulsion" from the army,
said defence ministry spokesman Christian Baptiste.

Defence Minister Herve Morin asked the army`s
disciplinary bodies to rule on Germanos` case and also sent a
letter asking that he be stripped of his Legion of Honour
award and Order of Merit, said Baptiste.

A Paris court convicted Germanos of possessing
photographs and videos of infants aged six months to 12 years,
downloaded over a four-year period up to June 2008.

Judge Marie-Francoise Guidolin said the 3,000 child
porn images that police had confiscated from his home computer
were "among the hardest this court has ever seen."

They involved "extremely young children" including
babies of six months engaged in "unspeakable acts," said the
judge.
During his trial, Germanos said he "deeply regretted"
his actions and that he had turned to child pornography during
"an extremely difficult time" when he was suffering from a
brain tumour.

French police were alerted by the international police
organisation Interpol after Austrian investigators identified
Germanos`s Internet address when he downloaded material from
an Austrian website.

PTI

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