Paris - A rights group filed a lawsuit
against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his visit
to France on Tuesday, accusing him of complicity in torture and
inhumane treatment in Yemen, lawyers said.
The complaint on behalf of Taha Hussein Mohamed, director of
the Legal Center for Rights and Development (LCRD), said the
prince who is Saudi Arabia's defence minister was responsible
attacks that hit civilians in Yemen.
The case was filed in a Paris court as pressure grows on
President Emmanuel Macron to curb arms sales to Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates, which spearhead a coalition fighting
Iran-aligned Houthi rebels who control of most of northern Yemen
and the capital Sanaa.
A Saudi government communications office and the royal court
did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The
Saudi-led coalition regularly says it does not target civilians.
The rights group, based in the Houthi-controlled Yemeni
capital Sanaa, says on its website it monitors and documents
rights' violations in Yemen.
"He ordered the first bombings on Yemeni territory on March
25, 2015," the group's lawyers, Joseph Breham and Hakim Chergui,
said in the complaint seen by Reuters.
"The existence of indiscriminate shelling by the coalition
armed forces affecting civilian populations in Yemen can be
qualified as acts of torture," they wrote.
The lawsuit may embarrass Macron at a delicate moment in
French-Saudi relations. France is the world's third biggest arms
exporter and counts the kingdom as one of its biggest buyers.
The lawyers cited U.N. reports and documentation by rights
groups such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and
Oxfam on arbitrary detentions and the use of illegal cluster
bombs.
Authorities will now begin studying the suit and decide
whether there is a basis to take further legal action. If the
case follows the usual course, the prince would be informed of
the legal action, but there would be no move to make him attend
a hearing or detain him.
The Yemen conflict has killed more than 10 000 people and
displaced more than 3 million - more than 10 percent of the
population.
The complaint also accuses the coalition of depriving
millions of people of access to basic necessities due to
indiscriminate bombings and a naval blockade of Yemeni ports.
The war has pushed the country to the brink of famine.
Coalition air strikes targeting Houthi fighters have
frequently hit civilian areas, although the alliance denies ever
doing so intentionally.
The coalition also says it is providing financial support to
help aid agencies and humanitarian groups to help civilians.
The lawyers said French courts were competent to handle the
case in line with the United Nations convention against torture.
Seventy-five percent of French people want Macron to suspend
arms exports to Gulf Arab states. Several rights groups have
warned of possible legal action if the government does not halt
its sales.