US jury finds French bank enabled Sudanese atrocities

A New York jury has found that French bank giant BNP Paribas helped Sudan's government commit genocide by providing banking services that violated American sanctions.

The eight-member jury sided with three plaintiffs originally from Sudan, awarding over $20 million in damages, after hearing testimonies describing horrors committed by Sudanese soldiers and the Janjaweed militia.

The plaintiffs - two men and one woman, all now American citizens - told the federal court in Manhattan that they had been tortured, burned with cigarettes, slashed with a knife, and, in the case of the woman, sexually assaulted.

A spokesperson for BNP Paribas said in a statement to AFP that the ruling "is clearly wrong and there are very strong grounds to appeal the verdict, which is based on a distortion of controlling Swiss law and ignores important evidence the bank was not permitted to introduce."

Plaintiffs' attorney Bobby DiCello called the verdict "a victory for justice and accountability."

"The jury recognized that financial institutions cannot turn a blind eye to the consequences of their actions," Mr DiCello said.

"Our clients lost everything to a campaign of destruction fueled by U.S. dollars, that BNP Paribas facilitated and that should have been stopped," he added.

BNP Paribas "has supported the ethnic cleansing and ruined the lives of these three survivors," he said during closing remarks Thursday.

The French bank, which did business in Sudan from the late 1990's until 2009, provided letters of credit that allowed Sudan to honor import and export commitments.

The plaintiffs argued that these assurances enabled the regime to keep exporting cotton, oil and other commodities, enabling it to receive billions of dollars from buyers.

They alleged that these contracts helped finance violence perpetrated by Sudan against a part of its population.