LYON, France -- The daughter of Klaus Barbie, the ex-Gestapo chief in Lyon who is blamed in the deaths of 4,000 Jews and Resistance fighters, Saturday visited him in jail and said he is 'tired, worn out and ill.'
Mrs. Ute Messner, 41, met for 90 minutes with Barbie at St. Joseph's prison, where he is waiting to be tried on eight charges of crimes against humanity -- carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
The 69-year-old Barbie is 'tired, worn out and ill,' she said after her first meeting with him since he was returned to France from Bolivia. He has a fever but 'his medical treatment is good and I think he will soon be well again,' she said.
Barbie's only surviving child, Mrs. Messner lives in the Austrian ski resort of Kufstein where she is a bookseller and married to a teacher. She and her husband Heini met with the investigating magistrate before she saw Barbie.
Mrs. Messner, in a news conference after her visit, said she was not allowed to embrace her father because theywere separated by a glass screen in the prison's visiting room.
Barbie, expelled from Bolivia Feb. 5, had written several letters to his family from prison and seemed 'obsessed' by his daughter's visit, justice sources said before the visit.
'That's all he talks about and all he is living for,' one official said.
Known as the 'Butcher of Lyon,' Barbie has been charged with the deaths of 294 French citizens between 1942 and 1944, when he was a Gestapo chief in the German-occupied city. He also is accused of deporting some 650 others to Nazi death camps.
Mrs. Messner said she knew nothing about her father's wartime activities and they talked little about organizing his defense against the charges.
'It's for him to take a decision,' she said. She said court-appointed lawyer Alain de la Servette, president of the Lyon's lawyer association, would continue for the time being to look after Barbie's defense.
Mrs. Messner said she planned to return frequently to visit her father. Barbie had always been 'an affectionate father,' she said.
