French court rejects Chernobyl case vs ex-ministers
Date: 19-Jun-00
Country: FRANCE
In the first such case in France, Yohann Van Waeyenberghe, 31, from the Champagne
regional capital Reims, had claimed his thyroid cancer was caused by fallout in
eastern France from the disaster at the Ukrainian nuclear plant in April 1986.
The sources said the Court of Justice of the Republic ruled on Thursday that
documents presented by the plaintiff to back his case did not establish
scientific evidence of a link between the fallout and his disease.
The complaint had aimed to have the then Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, Health
Minister Michele Barzach and Environment Minister Alain Carignon tried by the
Court of Justice of the Republic.
Van Waeyenberghe asked the three politicians to recognise they had not issued
explicit warnings of the dangers of the radioactive cloud which swept across much
of eastern and western Europe from the explosion at one of Chernobyl's reactors.
Soviet officials originally tried to play down the seriousness of the disaster,
which has been linked to the deaths of thousands of people in Ukraine.
France's Court of Justice of the Republic exists solely to try serving or past
members of government for offences committed while in office. Last year it
acquitted former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius on charges of knowingly allowing
AIDS-tainted blood to be used for transfusions.
