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Documents on RFI reporters’ murder in Mali released

After months of waiting, the judge in charge of the investigation into the murder of two RFI reporters in Mali in 2013 - journalist Ghislaine Dupont and technician Claude Verlon - is being permitted to see the Ministry of Defence documents related to the assassination.

Claude Verlon and Ghislaine Dupont.
Claude Verlon and Ghislaine Dupont. RFI
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The two were killed in the north of Mali near Kidal. The documents have now been declassified and will be examined by the judge specialised in terrorist offences, Jean-Marc Herbaut.

The Minister for Defence, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has come down in favour of the Commission that was looking into the implications of releasing some of the documents and their impact on national security.

The Commission, which received all the documents relating to the case on December 22 has authorised the release of a large number of the 175 documents that were handed to the Commission by the Ministry of Defence.

The declassified documents arrived on Wednesday at the office of the judge and consist of telegrams, notes, photos and other information relating to the case.

Included are documents that have been provided by intelligence agencies, including the agency tasked with external security (DGSE) and the military intelligence agency (DRM)

The Commission has looked at hundreds of pages of documents and has asked that one hundred confidential documents be declassified.

This means that 75 documents remain classified as the Commission ruled against their release. In the documents that have been released, several paragraphs have been erased to avoid compromising the way the army carries out operations and to protect future operations.

However, the documents that have been released will provide new insights into what happened on November 2 in 2013 in Kidal.

The judge could also ask to hear testimony from military personnel named in the file to clarify some of the contents. The judge could also ask for the release of other, related documents.

 

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