Four Sudanese refugees who fled their country after suffering persecution there were heard in Paris in the investigation targeting BNP Paribas for suspicion of “complicity in crimes against humanity”, according to a press release issued Friday by FIDH.
This is a crucial step, rejoiced their lawyers, Mes Clémence Bectarte and Emmanuel Daoud, who obtained in 2020 the opening of a judicial investigation after a joint complaint with FIDH, LDH and nine Sudanese.
Asked by AFP, BNP Paribas replied that it had no comment on this procedure, which is ongoing.
The investigating judges are investigating the role of the French bank in Sudan in the 2000s. In particular during the civil war which since 2003 has caused more than 300,000 deaths and 2.5 province of Darfur under the regime of Omar el-Bashir (1989-2019).
According to the NGO complaint, the regime was able, with money from the BNP, to finance its actions as well as the militias which carried out attacks and looting in villages or the intelligence services which arbitrarily imprisoned and tortured numerous civilians and activists from Darfur and other marginalized regions.
Among them these victims, Omar A. (name changed), 40 years old, refugee in the United States since 2010.
Originally from Darfur and a member of the Fur tribe, this activist recounts having been repeatedly targeted, from 2002, by the former Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), for his collaboration with international defense organizations. human rights.
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In 2009, he was kidnapped from Khartoum. They transferred me to military intelligence and tortured me,” he told AFP. Like three other Sudanese refugees, he told his story to magistrates and investigators in the hope of obtaining justice and that it would serve as a lesson for this bank and all the others which finance dictatorships.
In 2014, BNP Paribas pleaded guilty in the United States to violating American embargoes against Sudan, Cuba and Iran and paid a record fine of 8.9 billion dollars.
Sudan announced in 2021 its intention to hand over Omar el-Bashir, deposed in 2019, to the International Criminal Court (ICC) which claims him for genocide and crimes against humanity during the conflict in Darfur.