Apr. 13, 1962 - Edmond Jouhaud, second in command of the terrorist Secret Army Organization (OAS) in Algeria, was condemned to death today by a high military tribunal in Paris. The verdict against the former air force general was handed down by five civilian jurists, three lieutenant generals, and a vice admiral. There is no appeal from the tribunal’s sentence. Only President de Gaulle can commute it, and Jouhaud’s attorneys said today that the former general’s “honor” would not permit him to beg for mercy. Although the defense indicated that Jouhaud faced the guillotine as an officer who had been stripped of his rank during the short-lived generals’ coup in Algiers last April, some legal experts held that a firing squad could be the means of execution. Jouhaud, ramrod erect in the prisoner’s box, took the sentence without flinching. He kissed his defense attorneys on their cheeks, smiled at his wife in the visitors’ gallery, and was marched away by guards. In the streets outside the Palace of Justice, several hundred Rightists cried “De Gaulle to the gallows!” and “Assassins!”
