Cherbourg paid a first tribute on Sunday to the victims of the attack in Karachi (Pakistan), 20 years to the day after the tragedy which claimed the lives of 15 people, Norman workers working for the ex-DCN for the most part. “The legal battle we are waging, our quest for truth, will not bring them back but it is a duty”, even after “twenty years of accumulation” of “tons” of procedures, underlined Sandrine Leclerc, 47, daughter of one of the 11 French victims, during a ceremony which brought together between 200 and 300 people on Sunday afternoon.
The tribute took place near a stele erected in memory of the victims behind the Cité de la mer in Cherbourg. “The hindrances have been constant on this affair for 20 years now”, underlined the former Prime Minister and former PS deputy mayor of Cherbourg Bernard Cazeneuve interviewed by AFP just after the ceremony which he attended.
11 French dead
Many families of victims accuse the state of “blocking” the investigation with repeated refusals to declassify secret defense documents. “Many families are still angry and I understand that,” added the former Minister of the Interior, claiming to have come up against “an obstacle course to reconstruct” parts destroyed when he was in government. Shortly after the ceremony, President Emmanuel Macron issued a press release in which he “salutes the memory of the victims with respect” and “sends to the survivors, the families, as well as the men and women of the companies concerned, the assurance of its solidarity as well as that of the whole Nation”.
“I can’t take it anymore” that the case is not moving forward, told AFP on Sunday, before this ceremony, Marie Dupont, widow of one of the victims, “I am in so much pain. It destroyed my life, my children”. Not far from her, a boxing man. It is one of the 12 seriously injured, survivors of the attack, which keeps important consequences. “We must pay tribute to (…) 11 innocent people who paid for politicians who filled their pockets,” said this retiree who requested anonymity. “In this attack, our colleagues were victims of the arms trade and its financialization”, also advanced the CGT of the Naval Group site in Cherbourg in a press release.
Two lines of inquiry
Two tracks are explored by the investigators. Initially, only that of Al-Qaeda was considered. Since 2008, the judges have also been studying the trail of an attack organized in retaliation for the decision of President Jacques Chirac to stop paying commissions to Pakistani officials on arms contracts concluded by the Balladur government in 1994.
According to victims’ lawyers, judges today favor this second hypothesis. In 2020 the Paris Criminal Court ruled that part of the illegal kickbacks helped finance Edouard Balladur’s campaign. But the judges did not rule on a possible causal link between the cessation of payment of commissions and the Karachi attack. Edouard Balladur was acquitted by the Court of Justice of the Republic, his ex-minister François Léotard condemned .
Some boycott the ceremonies organized by the former DCN
In the morning, another ceremony of tribute to the victims of the attack, organized on the Naval Group (ex-DCN) site in Cherbourg, brought together around forty people, mainly relatives of the victims and a few injured. Many families have been boycotting for several years the ceremony of the former DCN condemned in 2004 by the social affairs court of Saint-Lô for inexcusable fault in this affair.
On May 8, 2002, a total of 15 people, including 11 French, died in the explosion of the bus which daily took employees of the Naval Construction Department (DCN) and its subcontractors from their hotel to the construction site. of a submarine sold to Pakistan by the DCN.
Some even boycotted the two ceremonies, such as the survivor and seriously injured Gilles Sanson, 60. He explained to AFP that he preferred to lay a white rose in front of the stele early Sunday morning. In 2002, the DCN was 100% owned by the State. It has since become Naval Group, 62% owned by the state.