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The OCLCH is currently composed of 15 gendarmes and 4 police officers. REUTERS / Regis Duvignau

The arrest in France of a Dutch naturalized Liberian national suspected of crimes against humanity on Friday, 7 September, highlighted the Central Office for Combating Crimes Against Humanity, Genocide and War Crimes ( OCLCH). This unpronounceable acronym is responsible for investigating the crimes in question, mainly on French territory.

Created on 5 November 2013 and attached to the French National Gendarmerie, the OCLCH is a " centrally located interministerial judicial police service". In concrete terms, this means that it is directly attached to the State and above all that it is competent throughout France.

A broad area of ​​action that allows this office to investigate the most serious international crimes. The gendarmes and policemen who compose this office are responsible for identifying and finding perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, but also torturers and those responsible for enforced disappearances. The OCLCH also works on racist, sexist or " sexual orientation or gender identity " crimes, whether the crime was committed in France or that the perpetrator or victim is French.

In this context, agents can not only move everywhere in France, but also abroad, in " the framework of international mutual legal assistance ". They have partnerships with the UN, the ICC, Interpol, police and justice services, both French and foreign to France and even some NGOs specialized in tracking down war criminals.

" The office is, for France, the central point of contact for international exchanges of police cooperation within its jurisdiction, " said his leader, Colonel Gendarmerie Eric Emeraux, in a statement from the Ministry of the Interior.

The Rwandan genocide, a starting point

Due to the seriousness and the difficulty of the facts on which it leans, this service affirms to privilege the efficiency to the speed, as evidenced by its motto, " Hora fugit, stat jus " - "the hour escapes, the law remains, "in Latin. When he was first created, he focused on the Rwandan genocide, which is still a quarter of his records.

His investigations served as support for the trial of three people involved in the Tutsi massacre. That of Pascal Simbikangwa, former captain of the Central Intelligence Service of Rwanda sentenced in 2016 to 25 years in prison for " genocide and complicity in crimes against humanity ", and that of Tito Barahira and Octavien Ngenzi, burgomasters convicted on appeal to life imprisonment in July 2018 .

Insufficient means

But despite the importance of its task, the OCLCH suffers from a cruel lack of means. It took him nearly four years to reach the twenty or so staff he expected. A still small number, even if, certainly, it is more than the three magistrates of the pole crimes against humanity of the court of first instance of Paris, its judicial equivalent. " In terms of the number of officers we are third behind the Netherlands (40 officers) and Germany (30) but it is we who have the most files, " lamented in 2016 Colonel Jean-François Caparos, who then directed the office.

And yet, with over 70 files in its charge covering a dozen countries around the world, including a major investigation against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, this service is not at the end of its sentences.