With FranceInfo, the environmentalist mayor of Pointe-à-Pitre and historical lawyer for the victims of chlordecone, Harry Durimel, says he is “determined to go to the Court of Cassation and the European Court of Justice so that justice is done to us .”
Justice has pronounced a dismissal in the investigation into the large-scale poisoning linked to the use of chlordecone in the French West Indies. If the investigating magistrates recognize a “health scandal”, they dismiss the case, evoking the difficulty of “reporting criminal proof of the facts denounced”, “committed 10, 15 or 30 years before the filing of complaints”, the first l having been in 2006.
A decision denounced to FranceInfo by Harry Durimel, the historical lawyer for the victims and mayor of Pointe-à-Pitre, in Guadeloupe, who announces “to appeal this order.”
“If the Court of Appeal does not agree with us, we will appeal in cassation. We are determined to go as far as the Court of Cassation and the European Court of Justice so that justice is done to us”, assures-t -he.
“A rule of law cannot say that there is a dismissal in the face of such a serious injustice” explains to FranceInfo the lawyer, who affirms that “it is through the press” that the associations of victims in Overseas have learned of the court decision.
Impossibility of “characterizing a criminal offence”
To justify the dismissal, the magistrates put forward various obstacles related to the law, its interpretation and its evolution since the time of use of chlordecone. They attest to their “concern” to obtain a “judicial truth”, which however resulted in an impossibility to “characterize a criminal offense”.
Used in banana plantations to fight against the weevil, chlordecone was authorized in Martinique and Guadeloupe until 1993, under derogation, when the rest of French territory had banned its use.
It caused significant and long-lasting pollution of the two islands and is suspected of having caused a wave of cancers. He was only banned from the West Indies 15 years after warnings from the World Health Organization.
According to Public Health France, more than 90% of the adult population of the two islands is contaminated by this pesticide.
