A New York jury on Friday found that French banking giant BNP Paribas's work in Sudan helped to prop up the regime of former ruler Omar al-Bashir, making it liable for atrocities that took place under the regime.
The eight-member jury sided with three plaintiffs originally from Sudan, awarding a total of $20.75 million in damages, after hearing testimony describing horrors committed by Sudanese soldiers and the Janjaweed militia.
The plaintiffs -- two men and one woman, all now American citizens -- told the federal court in Manhattan that they had been tortured, burned with cigarettes, slashed with a knife, and, in the case of the woman, sexually assaulted.
"I have no relatives left," Entesar Osman Kasher, 41, had testified.
A spokesperson for BNP Paribas said in a statement to AFP that the ruling "is clearly wrong and there are very strong grounds to appeal the verdict, which is based on a distortion of controlling Swiss law and ignores important evidence the bank was not permitted to introduce."
Plaintiffs' attorney Bobby DiCello called the verdict "a victory for justice and accountability."
"The jury recognized that financial institutions cannot turn a blind eye to the consequences of their actions," DiCello said. "Our clients lost everything to a campaign of destruction fueled by U.S. dollars, that BNP Paribas facilitated and that should have been stopped."
BNP Paribas "has supported the ethnic cleansing and ruined the lives of these three survivors," he said during closing remarks Thursday.
The French bank, which did business in Sudan from the late 1990s until 2009, provided letters of credit that allowed Sudan to honor import and export commitments.
The plaintiffs argued that these assurances enabled the regime to keep exporting cotton, oil and other commodities, enabling it to receive billions of dollars from buyers.
They alleged that these contracts helped finance violence perpetrated by Sudan against a part of its population.
But defense attorney Dani James argued "there's just no connection between the bank's conduct and what happened to these three plaintiffs."
Attorneys for BNP Paribas also said the French bank's operations in Sudan were legal in Europe and that global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund partnered with the Sudanese government during the period in question.
Moreover, defense attorneys said the bank had no knowledge of the human rights violations.
The plaintiffs would have "had their injuries without BNP Paribas," said attorney Barry Berke. "Sudan would and did commit human rights crimes without oil or BNP Paribas."
The war in Sudan claimed some 300,000 lives between 2002 and 2008 and displaced 2.5 million people, according to the United Nations.
Bashir, who led Sudan for three decades, was ousted and detained in April 2019 following months of protests in Sudan. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court on genocide charges.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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