Georges Kiejman, great criminal lawyer and former minister, died at the age of 90

He was notably famous for having been the lawyer for the family of Marie Trintignant, that of Malik Oussekine, Roman Polanski, Liliane Bettencourt or even Jacques Chirac. The former minister and master of criminal law, Georges Kiejman, died at the age of 90 on Tuesday morning. Between 1991 and 1993, he had been minister delegate in the cabinets of Michel Rocard, Edith Cresson and Pierre Bérégovoy.

Born in Paris on August 12, 1932, he is the son of a craftsman who died in deportation (he also called himself a “Jew of the diaspora and from Berry”). A poor young man, he completed his secondary studies in Saint-Amand-Montrond (Cher). After graduating from higher education in public law, he became a lawyer at the Paris Court of Appeal in 1954 and became second secretary of the Internship Conference.

Formidable lawyer

In civilian life, where his causticity makes him formidable, he is a specialist in literary property, publishing, cinema and the press. He was notably the lawyer for Gallimard editions for many years, like that of Gaston Defferre, Simone Signoret, Eugène Ionesco or Roland Barthes.

In criminal cases, he liked to say that his clients were “atypical”. Georges Kiejman thus defended the far-left activist Pierre Goldman, acquitted of the double murder of pharmacists on boulevard Richard-Lenoir following his second trial in 1976. He had also represented the interests of the United States during the trial of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, the alleged leader of the Lebanese Revolutionary Armed Fractions (FARL), sentenced to life imprisonment for the Middle Eastern attacks in Paris in 1986.

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