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Pressemitteilung
 Der Kanzler des Europäischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte 21/06/06 Gerichtshof – Mündliche Verhandlung der Großen Kammer im Fall der Vereinigung SOS-Attentat und de Boery gegen Frankreich [en] EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS 361
Press release issued by the Registrar GRAND CHAMBER HEARING The European Court of Human Rights is holding a Grand Chamber hearing today Wednesday 21 June 2006 at 9 a.m., in the case of Association S.O.S. Attentats and de Boëry v. France (application no. 76642/01). The applicants The case concerns an application brought by the association ‘SOS Attentats, SOS Terrorisme’, whose headquarters are in Paris, and by Béatrice Castelanu d'Essenault (maiden name de Boëry), a French national who lives in Paris. Summary of the facts The applicants complain that, following a terrorist attack in 1989 that resulted in the loss of a DC 10 operated by UTA, they have been prevented from bringing criminal proceedings against Colonel Gaddafi, the head of the Libyan State, and from claiming compensation for their losses by the immunity he enjoys in France on account of his position as a foreign head of state. On 19 September 1989 an airliner operated by the French airline UTA exploded over the Ténéré desert following a bomb attack in which 170 people, including Ms Castelanu d'Essenault's sister and a number of other French nationals, were killed. In proceedings instituted in France, six Libyan nationals were committed for trial in the Paris Special Assize Court. These were the head of the Libyan secret service (Colonel Gaddafi's brother-in-law), four members of the Libyan secret service and a civil servant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who worked at the Libyan Embassy in Brazzaville. On 10 March 1999 the six defendants were convicted in their absence to life imprisonment and ordered to pay compensation to the victims' families. In June 1999 the applicants lodged a complaint against Colonel Gaddafi and sought leave to join the proceedings as civil parties. They alleged complicity in voluntary homicide, the destruction of property by an explosive device causing fatal injury, and conspiracy to undermine public order through intimidation and terror. The investigating judges ruled that an information could lawfully be laid. Although the Indictment Division of the Paris Court of Appeal noted that an international custom afforded foreign heads of state immunity from prosecution in the courts of another state, it went on to find that the immunity did not apply in the case before it owing to the nature and seriousness of the alleged offences. However, its judgment was quashed by the Court of Cassation in a decision of 13 March 2001 in which it held that the alleged offences did not come within the exceptions to the principle of immunity for foreign heads of state and that there was therefore no ground for investigating the applicants’ complaints. ./.. On 9 January 2004, following protracted negotiations, the association ‘Les familles du DC 10 UTA en colère!’ and the applicant association, both representing families of the victims, concluded an agreement with the ‘Gaddafi World Foundation for Charities’ under the terms of which the families were each to receive one million US dollars in consideration for waiving their right to bring “civil or criminal proceedings in any French or international court on account of the explosion aboard the aircraft” and the applicant association agreed “not to take any hostile action or to lodge any complaint against Libya or Libyan natural or legal persons in connection with the explosion aboard the aircraft”. Complaints
Procedure
Composition of the Court
Luzius Wildhaber (Swiss), President, Representatives of the parties
*** After the hearing the Court will begin its deliberations, which are held in private. A decision on admissibility, followed if appropriate by a judgment, will be delivered at a later date. Press Contacts
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