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Tereos sugar cooperators convicted of slanderous denunciation

2020-11-28T15:21:02.456Z


In June 2019, internal opponents of the management of the cooperative company lodged a complaint for acts of terrorism. The complaint has


Tereos has restored its image.

This Thursday, the Paris Criminal Court condemned for slanderous denunciation the eight cooperators of the sugar group who had accused the company of having traded with Daesh.

These internal opponents of the management of this French agri-food giant were sentenced to a suspended fine of 1,500 euros.

A symbolic sentence but which comes to close a painful sequence.

Go back.

On March 20, 2019, Tereos (owner of the Béghin-Say brand in particular) learned that it was the target of a complaint for an act of terrorism filed by eight cooperative members hostile to management, in a context of great tension.

The complainants rely on the work of the NGO Conflict Armament Research (CAR), mandated by the European Union to inspect the arsenal of Daesh.

At the end of 2016, its investigators discovered in a warehouse in Mosul (Iraq) several bags of sorbitol stamped Tereos.

Sorbitol is a sugar derivative used in the food or pharmaceutical industry.

But, associated with potassium nitrate, it can also be used to propel explosive devices.

At the time, the group worked with CAR and understood that the bags in question came from a batch delivered to a Turkish intermediary.

The company says it is completely foreign to the diversion of its products and ensures that it will stop its deliveries in the sector.

Not considered whistleblowers

In their complaint, the cooperators take up this episode and accuse the management of having continued to deliver sorbitol to Syria after this alert.

But the accusations were quickly swept away by the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (PNAT) which filed the complaint on April 3, just two weeks after it was filed.

"The examination of this complaint did not reveal any terrorist offenses - the existence of an agreement or of a group likely to have united the company Tereos and the organization Islamic State or any other terrorist organization , including indirectly, […] not being established, ”then details the Paris prosecutor's office in a press release.

In the process, the management of the group counter-attacks by launching this procedure for slanderous denunciation.

In its judgment, the court ruled that the plaintiffs could not be considered as whistleblowers and that they were in bad faith.

The judges also accuse them of having orchestrated the filing of their complaint in the media.

“Today, the criminal justice system has given all Tereos cooperators their honor, congratulate Me Pierre-Olivier Sur and Mathias Chichportich, the group's lawyers.

They were all flabbergasted at the seriousness of the charges against the cooperative.

By this conviction, the court affirms that the eight defendants acted with an intention to harm.

This judgment will set a precedent in that it distinguishes the true from the false whistleblowers.

"

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"We are disappointed with this decision given the good faith of my clients," reacts Me Thibault Guillemin, the lawyer for the ex-plaintiffs.

The latter nevertheless noted the weakness of the sentence imposed.

“This proves, continues Me Guillemin, that the court took into account the context and the governance crisis that the group was going through when the complaint was filed.

"

Source: leparis

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