NY Jury Weighs Whether BNP Paribas Enabled Sudan Atrocities

A federal jury in Manhattan began deliberations Thursday on claims that BNP Paribas helped enable atrocities in Sudan under former ruler Omar al-Bashir in a civil case brought by Sudanese survivors, Le Monde and AFP reported.

The plaintiffs — two men and one woman — testified that Sudanese soldiers and Janjaweed militiamen tortured them, burned them with cigarettes, slashed them with knives, and, in the woman’s case, sexually assaulted her, the news agencies reported.

Their lawsuit argues the French bank’s Sudan business from the late 1990s until 2009 facilitated the regime’s economy by issuing letters of credit that kept exports of oil, cotton and other commodities flowing in service of the government’s campaign of violence.

The plaintiffs’ attorney said in court on Thursday that BNP Paribas had “rescued, shielded, fed and illegally supported the economy of a dictator,” according to the report.

BNP Paribas and its legal team argued that there is “no connection” between the institution’s conduct and the plaintiffs’ injuries, noting that the bank’s Sudan operations were legal in Europe at the time, that international institutions including the IMF worked with Khartoum, and that the bank lacked knowledge of human-rights abuses, the news agencies said.

The case, tried before an eight-member jury since Sept. 9, revisits a period when conflict in Sudan left an estimated 300,000 dead and 2.5 million displaced, according to the United Nations. Bashir, who ruled for three decades, was ousted in 2019 and is wanted by the International Criminal Court on genocide charges.