A French judge will investigate claims brought by an NGO that the former head of the European Union border agency, Frontex, was complicit in crimes against humanity, a judicial source has said.
Frontex, responsible for EU border control, was headed by Frenchman Fabrice Leggeri between January 2015 and April 2022.
He was regularly accused by NGOs of tolerating illegal pushbacks of migrants and asylum seekers during his leadership.
The Human Rights League (LDH) filed a complaint against him in 2024, accusing him of encouraging his staff to facilitate the interception of migrant boats by the Libyan and Greek authorities.
In the same year he joined French far-right party National Rally (RN), as number three on its list for the European elections.
Surge in migrant deaths highlights rising dangers of Mediterranean route
Leggeri had "chosen a policy aimed at obstructing, at any cost – particularly in human lives – the entry of migrants into the EU," LDH said.
The judicial source told French news agency AFP that a judge would investigate, after the Paris Court of Appeal ruled last week there were "grounds to initiate a judicial investigation into the facts as set out in the LDH's complaint".
"For the first time, one or more French investigating judges will examine the conditions of the possible criminal liability of Fabrice Leggeri in the carnage that has resulted in thousands of deaths in the Mediterranean, particularly children and women," LDH lawyer Emmanuel Daoud said on Tuesday.
Daoud denounced a "hunt for migrants and exiles" organised and coordinated by Frontex under Leggeri's the leadership with "very significant financial and technical resources".
Leggeri is also accused by the group of supporting the Libyan coast guard, "sometimes allied with criminal organisations, or by covering up reprehensible actions by the Greek coast guard or police forces," Daoud said.
Representatives of Leggeri, now a Member of the European Parliament for the RN, told AFP he had not been told about the decision so had no comment to make.
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Some 82,000 migrants have died or gone missing since 2014, mainly in the Mediterranean – where the figure is 34,000 – the world's deadliest migration route, according to the International Organization for Migration.
This is an underestimated number, according to the UN Support Mission in Libya and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which in a recent joint report pointed to the "serious violations" suffered by migrants "arbitrarily detained in official and unofficial detention centres" in Libya.
NGOs have criticised the fact that Frontex's maritime surveillance resources have been progressively replaced by aerial resources, in order to detect vessels earlier and to involve the Libyan coast guard rather than the Italian or Maltese coast guard.
(with AFP)
