Human rights organizations have sued former Frontex member and Rassemblement National politician Fabrice Leggeri. The reason: his role in Pusbacks.
Fabrice Leggeri at the Frontex headquarters in Warsaw, Poland, in September 2021 Photo: Kacper Pempel/Reuters
PARIS taz | The French human rights league LDH and the refugee aid organization Uropia56 on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the former executive director of the EU border protection agency Frontex, Fabrice Leggeri. They accuse him of complicity in torture and crimes against humanity.
Leggeri, who is running for third place on the list of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party in the upcoming EU representative elections, angrily rejects these accusations as “political maneuvering” and threatens to file a countersuit for defamation. . The accusations against the former director of Frontex are not new. However, they acquire additional explosiveness in the domestic and European political context of the elections.
In November 2022, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), together with the non-governmental organization Sea-Watch, sued him and other senior EU officials before the International Criminal Court in The Hague for “individual responsibility.” ”. in numerous cases of deprivation of liberty. The other defendants include former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and former EU delegate for foreign and security policy, Federica Mogherini.
The ECHR criminal complaint had already stated that stopping ships carrying migrants and refugees with the aim of returning them to Libya, or transmitting information about the location of ships in distress to the Libyan coast guard, could not be justified as a rescue operation due to to the danger to life. Rather, it represents a flagrant violation of international maritime law because, as has been known since at least 2011, returned refugees are imprisoned in Libya. Above all, they are exposed to “systematic exploitation”, as well as mistreatment, sexual violence and slavery. This has also been stated by the United Nations.
The lawsuit speaks of complicity in torture
“The accusation of complicity in crimes against humanity is very serious, but even more serious is allowing tens of thousands of men, women and children to die in the Mediterranean.”
Due to this situation, the lawsuit in France speaks of complicity in torture and crimes against humanity. The French judiciary is also responsible for this. The lawsuit by the two French organizations also cites an incriminating report from the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), which led to Leggeri's resignation as director of Frontex in 2022.
Along with the lawsuit, a 53-page document was submitted to the Paris court. LDH lawyer Emmanuel Daoud said: “The accusation of complicity in crimes against humanity is very serious, but even more serious is allowing tens of thousands of men, women and children to die in the Mediterranean or forcibly returning them to slavery in Libya. Leggeri bears personal responsibility because, instead of respecting the rules of the Geneva Convention and the law of the sea, he handed over those seeking ransom to Libya, Tunisia or Turkey and also hid it in official reports.
Leggeri responds that, on the contrary, with Frontex “he saved the lives of 350,000 migrants in accordance with international maritime law” from 2015 to 2022.