Paris (AFP)
A group of associations accused the French government on Wednesday of not revealing information on the assassination of two journalists from Radio France Internationale (RFI), kidnapped and killed in November 2013 in Mali.
Ghislaine Dupont, 57, and Claude Verlon, 55, were kidnapped during a report and then killed on November 2, 2013 near Kidal, a few months after the launch of the French operation Serval intended to counter jihadists threatening to take Bamako.
The assassination of RFI journalists, claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), is under investigation but the circumstances have never been clarified.
"It clearly appears that the French State, instead of assuming its responsibilities in accordance with the law, uses various maneuvers to hinder the search for the truth by families, historians, researchers and to prevent justice from being done to the victims ", accuses in a press release the collective" Secret defense, a democratic issue ".
"Justice can not instruct correctly because the secret defense documents which were communicated to him are amputated of many pages and many passages in the pages which remain", accuses the collective.
It works to "reform defense secrecy: it is a question of moving from the cult of the strong state which assumes all rights to a culture of the just state which guarantees and assures those of all citizens", says he.
Two senators and one member have questioned the government over the past few months. Senator PS Jean-Pierre Sueur asked four specific questions, which remained unanswered.
The Secretary of State to the Minister of the Interior Laurent Nunez replied to him on January 14 in the Senate that "the ministry of the armies continues to support the judicial investigations in progress and responds with extreme diligence to the requests of the magistrates. On the other hand, this support is not intended to be exposed publicly, because it is covered by the secrecy of the investigation and the instruction ".
"The ministry of the armies was requested several times, in 2015 and in 2016, by the magistrates in charge of the investigation. All the successive requests for declassification formulated by the justice gave place to the supply of documents of the ministry of the armies" , continued Laurent Nunez. "If documents or extracts of documents have not been declassified, it is only, as provided for by law, to preserve the capacities and methods of the services, but also to ensure the continuity of operations or the protection of personnel".
© 2020 AFP