13 Sep 2022; MEMO: Two NGOs have brought a case in France against Egyptian officials for crimes against humanity and against French officials for complicity.
The complaint follows an investigation by the NGO Disclose, which last year revealed a systematic bombing campaign against civilians suspected of smuggling in the Western Desert on the border with Libya.
French officials have been accused of complicity for providing information and intelligence to the Egyptian armed forces which allowed them to carry out the attacks during the secret, joint, military operation between the two countries codenamed Sirli.
In November last year Disclose obtained hundreds of French documents that detailed the abuses that took place. They estimate that between 2016 and 2018 the French army may have been involved in at least 19 civilian bombings destroying several vehicles and killing several hundred people.
Sirli was conducted from a military base inside the town of Marsa Matruh on Egypt's northern coast and was presented as a counter-terror opertion to fight the Islamist threat from Libya.
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According to Disclose, Egypt sees the smugglers who operate here as a threat and have struggled to control the western desert and asked France to provide military support to better control the area.
Despite being set up as a counter-terror op, the classified documents showed that abuses took place under the cover of the intelligence mission including supplying information about locations that later led to arbitrary executions.
According to Disclose, the French presidency was repeatedly notified about these state crimes.
Months after the operation started, French soldiers warned their commanding officers that their operation isn't delivering results in the war against terror and that most of the search for activity is about locating smugglers for pick-ups to either neutralise or destroy.
In 2017 France's military director wrote a classified report to France's chief of staff of the armed forces saying that most of the pick-up trucks localised in the Egyptian desert were not connected with terror groups and were mainly Bedouin smugglers.
On one occasion the French Military Intelligence warned that one strike was carried out by an Egyptian aircraft: "The presence of the armed Cessna is proof that the Egyptian Air Force wishes to use [shared] intelligence for repressive purposes against local smugglers."
