Pnat investigation into a Central African subsidiary of the Castel group

PARIS, July 1 (Reuters) – France’s National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) has opened an investigation for complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes against a Central African subsidiary of French drinks giant Castel, we learned. Friday from a source familiar with the matter.

This investigation comes in the wake of a report published in August 2021 by the NGO The Sentry https://thesentry.org/reports/culture-de-la-violence, accusing the Sucrerie Africaine de Centrafrique (SUCAF RCA), exploited by the Castel group, of having “financed armed militias responsible for mass atrocities” in order to “protect its market share in the sugar sector”, within the framework of a “tacit agreement” which ran from the end of 2014 – period marked by a serious political and security crisis in the Central African Republic – until March 2021. (Tassilo Hummel and Sarah Morland report; French version Myriam Rivet, edited by Sophie Louet)