the toxic truth - Greenpeace

the toxic truth
In an interview conducted shortly after the
settlement, one of the Trafigura Group’s
executives, Eric de Turckheim, stated that the
decision of the court to allow the executives
to be released on bail was independent of
the settlement. When asked by a journalist
whether the settlement money paid by
Trafigura to the state could be interpreted as
“ransom money”, he said:
“ That would be totally false. It just so
happens that we reached an agreement with
the government of Abidjan a few hours before
the Court of Appeal made a decision about the
detention of our two managers. But the two
608
events are independent. ”
This statement made by the company, denying
that a link existed between the release of
the three executives and the settlement
agreement, is not credible in light of the
settlement’s provisions. Money was provided
as surety and bail. In addition, a “Note” to
the settlement explicitly stated that, among
the “necessary documents” that had to be
presented to the bank before the money
would be released, was a statement from a
court official certifying the actual release of
the executives, their boarding of an airliner
and the take-off of the said airliner, all in the
presence of a bank representative. This same
condition was also included in the bank credit
letter issued by the Côte d’Ivoire International
Bank for Commerce and Industry, under
which it was stated that the money would
only be paid to the Ivorian government upon
presentation of the document confirming that
the Trafigura executives had been released. 609
Public statements by the Ivorian prosecutor
after the settlement expose the heavy
degree of involvement of the then President,
Laurent Gbagbo, in securing the release of
the executives. The acting Public Prosecutor
told a journalist that, in view of Trafigura’s
“effort [to] compensate victims before the
trial” for such a significant sum, the President
of Côte d’Ivoire was entitled to say to him as
prosecutor: “Listen, I think that on this point
of compensation, the representatives of the
company Trafigura have made a significant
gesture. I also need to make an appreciable
gesture which is the provisional release on
bail of those charged,” and to ask him as the
prosecutor to take that on board. 610
The Public Prosecutor stated that the
authorities had received assurances that
Dauphin and Valentini would appear in court
for the criminal proceedings, since Trafigura
had business interests in Côte d’Ivoire. In
reality, neither Dauphin nor Valentini returned
to Côte d’Ivoire, and the criminal proceedings
continued against the other parties in their
absence.
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Chapter 11