Hamida Djandoubi: Difference between revisions

'''Hamida Djandoubi''' ({{lang-ar|حميدة جندوبي|Ḥamīda Jandūbī}}; 22 September 1949 – 10 September 1977) was a [[Tunisia|Tunisian]] convicted murderer [[Capital punishment|sentenced to death]] in [[France]]. He moved to [[Marseille]] in 1968, and six years later he [[Kidnapping|kidnapped]], [[Torture|tortured]], and [[Murder|murdered]] 22-year-old Élisabeth Bousquet. He was [[capital punishment in France|sentenced to death]] in February 1977 and executed by [[guillotine]] in September that year. He was the last person to be executed in [[Western Europe]],<ref name="Zimring2004">{{cite book|author=Franklin E. Zimring|title=The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sRTiBwAAQBAJ&pg=PT33|date=24 September 2004|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-029237-9|pages=33–}}</ref> and also the last person to be lawfully executed by [[decapitation|beheading]] anywhere in the [[Western world]], although he was not the last person sentenced to death in France. [[Marcel Chevalier]] served as chief executioner.<ref name="isf">{{Citation | title = Les deux derniers bourreaux français toujours vivants | url = http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2007/09/10/8914-les-deux-derniers-bourreaux-francais-toujours-vivants.html | publisher = La Dépêche du Midi | date = 10 September 2007 }} (French)</ref>

Born in Tunisia on 22 September 1949, Djandoubi started living in Marseille in 1968, workingwhere he worked in a grocery store. He later worked as a [[landscaper]] but had a workplace accident in 1971: his leg got caught in the tracks of a tractor and resulted in the loss of two-thirds of his right leg.<ref name="youtube.com">[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxaflU33708 Cédric Condom, ''Le Dernier Guillotiné''], [[Planète+]] Justice, 2011 (French)</ref>

After a lengthy pre-trial process, Djandoubi eventually appeared in court in [[Aix-en-Provence]] on charges of [[torture murder|torture-murder]], [[rape]], and premeditated violence on 24 February, 1977. His main defence revolved around the supposed effects of the amputation of his leg six years earlier, which his lawyer claimed had driven him to a [[paroxysm]] of [[alcohol abuse]] and violence, turningwhich turned him into a different man.

On 25 February, he was sentenced to death. An [[appeal]] against his sentence was rejected on 9 June. In the early morning of 10 September, 1977, twelve days before his 28th birthday, Djandoubi was informed that he, like the [[Child murder|child murderers]] [[Christian Ranucci]] (executed on 28 July 1976) and [[Jérôme Carrein]] (executed on 23 June 1977), had not received a reprieve from President [[Valéry Giscard d'Estaing]]. Shortly afterwards, at 4:40&nbsp;a.m., he was executed by [[guillotine]] at [[Baumettes Prison]] in [[Marseille]].

While Djandoubi was the last person executed in France, he was not the last condemned.<ref name = rfi>{{Citation | title = La dernière exécution capitale date de 30 ans | url = http://www.rfi.fr/actufr/articles/093/article_56265.asp | publisher = Radio France internationale | date = 10 September 2007 }} (French)</ref> No more executions occurred after [[capital punishment in France|capital punishment was abolished in France]] in 1981 following the election of [[François Mitterrand]], and those sentenced to die had their sentences [[Commutation (law)|commuted]].<ref name = nouvelobs>{{Citation|title = Il y a 30 ans, avait lieu la dernière exécution | url = http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualites/societe/20070910.OBS4158/il_y_a_30_ans_avait_lieula_derniere_execution.html | publisher = Le Nouvel Observateur | date = 10 September 2007}} (French)</ref> Djandoubi's death was the last time any Western nation carried out an execution by beheading, as well as the most recent government-sanctioned guillotine execution in the world.