Geneva probes war crimes in Libya possibly committed by Swiss firm
3 Min Read
The European Union is far from stopping its ravaging of Libya after it opened the gates to hell through NATO's war in 2011, as a Swiss firm could be committing war crimes in the country.
-
Damaged houses and bodies of civilians said to have been killed in a NATO coalition bombing in Tripoli, Libya. (AFP, Getty Images)
Geneva is investigating suspected war crimes in Libya, namely looting, in a probe into a network smuggling Libyan Gasoil, Swiss state prosecutors said Thursday.
The Office of the Attorney General announced launching an investigation over a report by the Gotham City investigation website, which specializes in economic crime in Switzerland, one of the world's biggest tax-havens.
The office said that during the period spanning May and June of 2020, it received intelligence from an NGO and the Money Laundering Reporting Office referring to an "identical context."
"A maritime Gasoil smuggling network resulting from the looting of Libyan state oil refineries was allegedly carried out between 2014 and 2015 in the context of the Libyan conflict," it said.
"The OAG (Office of the Attorney General) carried out a preliminary analysis of the facts and a legal assessment of the case," the office said, and since suspicion proved sufficient, it ordered the opening of criminal proceedings against unknown individuals for being suspected of committing war crimes by engaging in looting in November 2020.
The OAG declined to delve further into details due to the proceedings still being underway, but a March 2020 investigation saw Public Eye and TRIAL International accusing Swiss traders Kolmar Group of being linked to the aforementioned war crimes.
Kolmar denied these allegations in a statement issued on Thursday, insisting that it, alongside its officers, "are not and have never been subject to any criminal proceedings in any context in any jurisdiction."
It also claimed that neither Kolmar nor its officers were being prosecuted over the allegations, reiterating that it had "not violated any laws and/or sanctions at any given time."
TRIAL International said it filed a criminal report with the OAG in May 2020. Executive director Philip Grant said: "The OAG sends a strong signal to all companies operating in conflict zones that their activities must respect international humanitarian law."
This would not be the first time that Europe has committed violations in Libya, as NATO's international war was concocted by Brussels and Washington, which subsequently led to the collapse of Libya as a whole.
The New Yorker, in collaboration with The Outlaw Ocean Project, an investigative non-profit that probes into lawlessness at sea, got to the bottom of something akin to a prison-hell that has been kidnapping migrants and throwing them into a cement-depot-turned-prison in the country's capital.
It was found that the European Union funded these atrocities in the Arab nation, creating a "shadow immigration system" to curb migrants from making it to Europe.
