Africa, Europe - Sunday, March 30, 2008 8:23 - 0 Comments

French soldiers accused of torture

There is a breaking story being reported by Swedish television news magazine, Uppdrag Granskning. They allege in a just released documentary that French soldiers have been accused by the Swedish military of torturing civilians while on Operation Artemis in the Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said.

Swedish soldiers saw French soldiers participating in hours of torture involving a Congolese man in civilian dress, allegedly choking and beating him.

This operation, sanctioned by the United Nation’s, is seen as the European Union’s first joint effort. The force contained approximately 1,500 soldiers, with orders to go to the DR Congo in an effort to provide safety to civilians in the region during 2003.

While the action was a joint effort by EU troops, reports clearly indicated the show was run by the French. It will be interesting to see whether we now have another instance similar to Abu Ghraib

We have requested a transcript from the producers of the documentary. We will post this soon.

http://svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=2232
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