French justice has dismissed a complaint against the TotalEnergies group for complicity in Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Two NGOs filed a complaint after a press article but their complaints were rejected for procedural reasons.
:quality(50)/2023/07/07/64a7df4c5fe71_placeholder-36b69ec8.png)
Published
Reading time: 1 min
:quality(50)/2024/04/10/080-hl-bpolge-2099535-6616af62e086d688616820.jpg)
French justice declared inadmissible in mid-October a complaint from two associations targeting TotalEnergies for complicity in Russian war crimes in Ukraine, thus putting an end to this procedure, franceinfo learned on Wednesday April 10 from a judicial source, confirming the information from the AFP.
The dean of the investigating judges of the crimes against humanity division of the Paris judicial court declared inadmissible the complaints of two NGOs, the Bordeaux-based Darwin Climax Coalition and the Ukrainian Razom We Stand. The two associations filed a first complaint after an August 2022 article in Le Monde based on several documents and an investigation by the NGO Global Witness. According to these elements, TotalEnergies was accused of having continued to exploit a deposit in Russia after the start of the war in Ukraine, which would have made it possible to manufacture fuel used by Moscow’s planes.
NGOs do not have standing to act according to justice
The complaint was closed without further action by the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) for insufficiently characterized offense. The complainants had appealed to the public prosecutor’s office at the Paris Court of Appeal, which also did not respond, then filed a complaint with the constitution of a civil party in March 2023.
But in accordance with the requisitions of the Pnat, the dean rejected the associations’ request for procedural reasons, considering that they did not respect the necessary five years of seniority and did not have the appropriate social purpose to take legal action in this type. of files.
