Three NGOs announced on Thursday June 2 that they had filed a complaint in Paris for "complicity in war crimes" against Dassault, Thalès and MBDA France, which they accuse of having sold arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. who served against civilians in Yemen.

These three companies "export arms to the (Emirati-Saudi) coalition, knowing that it has been committing war crimes since 2015", lamented Cannelle Lavite, of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights ( ECCHR, one of the civil parties).

According to her, this raises the question of their complicity.

The plaintiffs are also suing the three companies for "complicity in crimes against humanity".

According to these NGOs, Dassault makes possible attacks “against civilians and civilian infrastructure” by having sold and above all by ensuring the maintenance of 59 Mirage acquired by the United Arab Emirates, allowing them to “remain operational”, continued Cannelle Lavite.

In the same logic, the sale recorded in December of 80 Rafale to this country can be interpreted as "an encouragement" to commit violations of international humanitarian law, insisted the lawyer.

Thousands of civilian casualties

The company MBDA France is for its part targeted for having exported Storm Shadow and Scalp missiles to the belligerents, while the Thales group is pointed out for having supplied them with a missile guidance system called Damocles and Thalios, according to the same source.

"If we provide weapons to an alleged perpetrator of recurring crimes, we facilitate the commission of these crimes," insisted Cannelle Lavite.

The war in Yemen since 2014 has pitted Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, against government forces, assisted by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

It caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of displaced persons and is presented by the UN as one of the worst current humanitarian disasters in the world, exposing a large part of the population to a situation of acute hunger, close to famine. 

The Yemeni NGO Mwatana, also a civil party, like the French NGO Sherpa, claims to have documented "a thousand attacks against civilians" having left "at least 3,000 dead and 4,000 injured" thanks to "recent weapons" sold to the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, according to its executive director Abdulrasheed al-Faqih.

"Arms exports fuel the conflict and the suffering of Yemenis. By investigating the potential responsibilities of economic actors in the crimes committed in Yemen, French justice could play an essential role in the fight against impunity and the access to justice for those affected by international crimes," said Anna Kiefer, litigation and advocacy officer at Sherpa in a press release.

In April 2019, the French investigative media Disclose revealed the existence of a note from French military intelligence dating from October 2018 and confirming the use of French weapons in Yemen.

With AFP

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