Yemen: three French companies subject to a complaint for “complicity in war crimes”
On Thursday, three non-governmental organizations filed a complaint in Paris for “complicity in war crimes” against the groups “Dassault”, “Thallis” and “MBDA France”, which are accused of selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE that were used against civilians in Yemen. Prosecutors are prosecuting the three companies for complicity in crimes against humanity. A previous investigative investigation had revealed the existence of a note from the French military intelligence dating back to October 2018 confirming the use of French weapons in Yemen.
Three non-governmental organizations said Thursday that they had filed a complaint in Paris for “complicity in war crimes” against the groups “Dassault”, “Thletis” and “MBDA France”, which are accused of selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE that were used against civilians in to whom.
Cannell Lafitte of the “European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights”, one of the organizations that submitted the complaint, expressed its regret that the three groups “export weapons to the (Emirati-Saudi) coalition knowing that it has been committing war crimes since 2015”, which raises the questions of non-governmental organizations claiming their complicity.
The Yemeni organization “Mwatana”, which is also a civilian party like the French NGO “Sherpa”, said that it had documented “a thousand attacks on civilians” that left “at least three thousand dead and four thousand wounded” thanks to “modern weapons” that were sold to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, According to its CEO, Abdul Rashid Al-Faqih.
In April 2019, the French investigative media, Disclose, revealed the existence of a note from the French military intelligence dating back to October 2018 confirming the use of French weapons in Yemen.
Prosecutors are prosecuting the three companies for complicity in crimes against humanity. These NGOs said that Dassault Group makes it possible to launch attacks “against civilians and civilian infrastructure” by selling it and above all by securing the maintenance of 59 Mirage aircraft acquired by the Emirates, allowing them to continue “operating” them, Lafitte added.
According to the same logic, the human rights defender emphasized that the sale of 80 Rafale aircraft to this country in December could be interpreted as “encouraging” the commission of violations of international humanitarian law.
The complaint included “MDPA France” for exporting “Stork Shadow” and “Scalp” missiles to the belligerents, while accusing “Thales” of providing them with a missile guidance system called “Damocles and Talios,” according to the same Source.
“If we provide weapons to a presumed perpetrator of repeated crimes, we facilitate the commission of those crimes,” Cannell-Laffitt asserted.
The conflict in Yemen has been raging since 2014 between the Iran-backed Houthis and government forces backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
It has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and displaced millions of people and is considered by the United Nations to be one of the worst current humanitarian disasters in the world in which a large part of the population suffers from acute starvation close to famine.
