The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) is investigating the French group Castel, owner of Nicolas stores and a global wine and beer giant, following a report by an NGO accusing it of having paid rebel militias in the Central African Republic, reports France Inter on Friday, following a Le Monde survey published last year.
The Castel group is very present in Africa, where it has some 240 subsidiaries in some fifty countries. In addition to beer and soft drinks, the group also carries out agro-industrial activities there, mainly in sugar and flour, through its subsidiary Somdiaa.
The American NGO The Sentry published a report in August 2021 accusing him of having financed armed militias “responsible for mass atrocities” during the civil war in the Central African Republic “to protect their market share”.
“Safe Deal”
According to the organization, the sugar company Sucaf RFA, owned by Somdiaa, and therefore by Castel, negotiated at the end of 2014 “a security agreement with an armed group” called ‘Unité pour la paix en Centrafrique (UPC) in order to ” secure the factory and sugar cane fields” and “guarantee free movement on key highways”.
This agreement, which would have taken the form of “direct and indirect cash payments, as well as in-kind support in the form of vehicle maintenance and fuel supply”, would have continued “until March 2021”, the US NGO stated. in your report.
Castel disputes the charges
The Castel group refuted the accusations of the American NGO. But the national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office has decided to resume the case and open a preliminary investigation on suspicion of complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity, reports France Inter.
The gendarmes of the Central Office for the Fight against Crimes against Humanity (OCLCH) are investigating in particular the possible material and logistical aid to the armed militias. Sucaf was liquidated in June 2022 by the Somdiaa board of directors.
The Castel group denounced “unsubstantiated accusations and charges” to France Inter.
Source: BFM TV
