A high-profile Gulf War general has received a suspended prison sentence for downloading child pornography.
Raymond Germanos, a French military commander who worked with British and other allied forces during the conflict in the early 1990s, pleaded guilty to obtaining thousands of obscene images.

The 68-year-old, who had an unblemished military career which also saw him doing active service in Bosnia, received a ten-month prison sentence and was ordered to pay one euro in symbolic damages to child protection charities.
Judge Marie-Francoise Guidolin, sitting at the Paris Correctional Court, said: ‘The images were unspeakable.'
Germanos, who pleaded guilty to possessing 3,000 images of children between six months and 12 years old, said: ‘I simply want to say that I regret what I did.’
Germanos, who is married with children of his own, was caught during a police investigation coordinated by Interpol. He claimed he had medical problems which had affected his judgement.
He was military spokesman for French forces during the Gulf War before retiring in 2002 and going on to work as an adviser to the president of Cameroon.
Germanos’s numerous decorations include France’s National Order of Merit. He is also a  Commander in the French Legion of Honour.