Some in the West Indies feared this outcome. Justice rendered, Monday, January 2, a decision of final dismissal in the criminal file of chlordecone, closing seventeen years of procedure. Unsurprisingly, the two investigating judges from the public health department of the Paris court followed the requisitions of the prosecution, made on November 24, in this case of contamination of thousands of hectares of agricultural land by this highly toxic insecticide, which had been widely spread in the banana plantations of Guadeloupe and Martinique between 1972 and 1993.
For two years, the associations which had lodged a complaint in February 2006 for “poisoning”, “endangering the lives of others”, “administration of harmful substances”, and “deceit on the risks inherent in the use of “, chained the disappointments which seemed to make this outcome always more inevitable. Indeed, from January 2021, the investigating judges informed the complainants of a possible prescription of the file. Then, in March 2022, the two magistrates notified the civil parties of the end of their investigations, without indictments.
None of the four civil party lawyers contacted by The world, had not yet received the dismissal order on January 5, the date on which the judges’ decision was revealed by Agence France-Presse (AFP). In this document of more than 300 pages, the two judges recognize a “health scandal”in the form of’“an environmental attack whose human, economic and social consequences affect and will affect the daily life of the inhabitants for many years” from Martinique and Guadeloupe.
” Miscarriage of justice “
The magistrates nevertheless pronounced a dismissal, evoking the difficulty of “report the criminal evidence of the facts denounced”and also emphasizing “the state of technical or scientific knowledge” when the facts were committed. So many factors that contribute to the impossibility of “characterize a criminal offence”.
“It’s not a disappointment. We expected it”, admits Christophe Lèguevaques, lawyer for several civil parties including the association Vivre en Guadeloupe. After the announcement of the dismissal requisitions, Me Lèguevaques had, on December 22, sent the court a 239-page brief in which he presented in particular “new arguments” against prescription. “What is surprising is that in less than ten days, they had time to assimilate all these arguments and respond to them”ironically this lawyer at the Paris bar.
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