wanted to be able to go out on the streets and live in peace. I, who judge no one … often ask, considering what happens in a city today — with those blind attacks which decimate the innocent — why someone does not understand within a few weeks that the high authorities must utilize all means in order to put an end to the terror?...I am a patriot. I take full responsibility for my actions. I do not seek to justify my actions but simply try to explain that from the moment when a nation demands of its army to fight an enemy that terrorizes the population and forces it into submission, it is impossible for the army not to resort to extreme means....In the interest of my country I had clandestinely carried out operations unacceptable to the ordinary moral standards, had often circumvented the law: stolen, assassinated, vandalized, and terrorized. I had learned how to pick locks, kill without leaving traces, lie, be indifferent to my suffering and to that of others, had forgotten and made others forget. All for France. In an interview to Marie-Monique Robin, Aussaresses described the methods used, including the creation of death squads (escadrons de la mort), the term being created at this time. Trial Following Aussaresses' revelations, which suggested that torture had been ordered by the highest levels of the French state hierarchy, Human Rights Watch sent a letter to President Jacques Chirac (RPR) to indict Aussaresses for war crimes, declaring that, despite past amnesties, such crimes, which may also have been crimes against humanity, may not be amnestied. The Ligue des droits de l'homme (LDH, Human Rights League) filed a complaint against him for "apology of war crimes," as Paul Aussaresses justified the use of torture, claiming it had saved lives following the Necessity Defense [AKA: Choice of Evils] and/or the Self-Defense (although he did not explicitly use this expression). He was condemned to a 7,500 Euros fine by the Tribunal de grande instance de Paris, while Plon and Perrin, two editing houses who had published his book in which he defended the use of torture, were sentenced each to a 15,000 Euros fine.<ref name="condamnation">condamnation du général Aussaresses pour "apologie de crimes de guerre" , Ligue des droits de l'homme (LDH, Human Rights League), February 2002. </ref> The judgement was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in April 2003. The Court of