A judge in France has commissioned an investigation into Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on the possibility of "complicity in acts of torture" in the Yemen war, according to Agence France-Presse quoted sources it described as having links to the case.
A preliminary investigation was opened in October 2019 in Paris against Bin Zayed, against whom two cases were filed during an official visit to Paris in November 2018.
Six right-wingers lodged a complaint by prosecuting the civil right with the chief investigative judge for the crimes against humanity pole at the Paris Court.
"My clients welcome the opening of an investigation and pin great hopes on French justice," their lawyer, Joseph Braham, told AFP.
Torture in Emirati detention centers, and
prosecutors complained of torture committed in detention centers in Yemen controlled by Emirati armed forces, the latter being involved in a coalition with Saudi Arabia against the Houthis who have controlled the capital, Sanaa, since 2014.
The complaint stated that Mohamed bin Zayed, as the supreme commander of the UAE Armed Forces, "may have provided the means and gave orders to commit these violations."
And the French judiciary can follow and condemn the perpetrators of these crimes and their accomplices when they are on French soil, based on the principle of "the international judicial agency".
Complaints by claiming the civil right allow an investigation to be opened almost automatically and the appointment of an investigative judge to undertake the research.
In March of last year, a French law firm specializing in international law filed a lawsuit in the Paris court against the United Arab Emirates and a group of foreign mercenaries, including French nationals, who they said were recruited to assassinate civilians, activists, politicians and imams in Yemen.
The lawsuit was filed by the Ancel Law Firm against Bin Zayed, at the request of the Paris-based International Human Rights Organization.
The French lawyer, the suit, Joseph Braham, said in March 2019 that after months of gathering evidence and evidence directly involved the UAE in recruiting hundreds of foreign mercenaries, including nine former soldiers who worked within the French foreign legion and some of them hold French citizenship, the case was brought before the Supreme Court in Paris.
Braham explained, in a statement to Al-Jazeera Net, that the French judiciary in this case would also have the jurisdiction to question and try Emirati officials, headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the chief of staff in the UAE army, who the lawsuit says is involved in employing foreign mercenaries involved in crimes. War and crimes against humanity in Yemen.
The conflict in Yemen has left tens of thousands of people dead, most of them civilians, and has caused one of the worst famines in modern history.