A French court has issued an international warrant for the arrest of Congo Republic Army Inspector General Norbert Dabira, accused of crimes against humanity, judicial sources said on Thursday.
The warrant was sent on March 25 to Interpol by the prosecutor at the court in Meaux, a town northeast of Paris. The prosecutor has been conducting a judicial inquiry into allegations of crimes against humanity and torture in the case of about 350 Congolese who went missing in the late 1990s in Brazzaville, the Congolese capital.
The warrant says Dabira is wanted for ”crimes against humanity”, said the sources.
The announcement of the warrant for Dabira’s arrest comes days after Congo police chief Jean-Francois Ndenguet was detained in Meaux in connection with the disappearance of the missing 350. He was later released because of diplomatic immunity.
The Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues and the Congolese Observatory of Human Rights have condemned Ndenguet’s release. In a joint statement, they accused French authorities of showing an ”apparent respect for legality” to pursue ”complicity with criminals against humanity” by covering for ”this kind of ‘friend”’.
The missing 350 had fled violence in their country in the 1990s and sought refuge in Congo’s larger eastern neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
They were said to have been arrested by security forces on their return to the capital, Brazzaville, and have not been seen since.
Three survivors who escaped to France brought a lawsuit before the Meaux tribunal, accusing Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso, Interior Minister Pierre Oba, Dabira and General Blaise Adoua, head of the Republican Guard, of torture, kidnapping and crimes against humanity.
The Congolese authorities have repeatedly denied that the returning refugees were arrested, but have admitted that there had been ”events beyond government control” as several groups had ”settled scores” as Congo emerged from a decade of civil war, which pitted private armies backing political leaders against each other.
In January, Dabira said the court in Meaux had issued an international warrant for his arrest. Judicial sources said on Thursday that the court had asked the prosecutor to issue a warrant then, but the request was only carried through late last month.
Dabira said in January that the judges in Meaux were making ”relentless attacks against me. I have the impression that the judges want to make me a scapegoat for this affair, to make life difficult for those in power in Brazzaville.”
Accompanied by his lawyer, Dabira, who has a resident’s permit in France, gave evidence to two judges in Meaux in July 2002, but refused to comply with a second order to appear before the judges in September of that year.
”My office does not make me a key player in our country’s defence system,” Dabira has said.
”All orders come from the Defence Ministry or the army chief of staff. If there was an administrative error, it shouldn’t be blamed on me,” he said.
”When I gave evidence, the judges in Meaux told me they wanted to get to the bottom of this affair, through me. I am therefore the designated guilty party who will allow them to achieve their goal.
”It is wicked for the judges in Meaux to attack an innocent man,” he said. — Sapa-AFP