The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France has initiated proceedings against lawyer Juan Branco. According to Europe 1, a complaint is filed by the French institution with the public prosecutor. In fact, Ousmane Sonko’s counsel is accused of having endangered French civil servants in Senegal.
After repression of the demonstrations against the imprisonment of the Senegalese opponent Ousmane Sonko on June 1, his lawyer, Juan Branco, announced to file a complaint for crimes against humanity. During a press conference on June 22, the lawyer specifically accuses two French aid workers, citing them by name, before communicating the personal data of one of them, such as his telephone number or his registration number. Along with his complaint, Juan Branco also cited the names of five other agents.
In two tweets published a few days before the conference, on June 11 and 13, the lawyer had already arbitrarily denounced the involvement of these two French aid workers in the violence in Senegal, which he described as crimes against humanity. He had therefore called for their identities to be revealed. In the second tweet, Juan Branco announced that he had identified all the French soldiers integrated into the command of the Senegalese gendarmerie, underlining an alleged role of France in the repression of violence.
It is for these remarks that the Quai d’Orsay has stepped up to the plate. According to information from Europe 1, the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs requests that the lawyer be called to order. The ministry declared to file a complaint in application of article 40 (editor’s note: the article according to which any authority or civil servant is obliged to report a crime or an offense of which he has knowledge).
On Twitter, Juan Branco was quick to react following this complaint against him. “The masks are falling. France is filing a complaint against me. My country. My people. My country. For what ? For revealing the commission of crimes against humanity,” defended Juan Branco in a tweet following the ministry’s complaint. “The Quai d’Orsay has never denounced them. We will not give in to any intimidation. So that elsewhere we can continue to say to ourselves: yes, there are still in France people who have courage, values, a relationship to honor, integrity and dignity. So that our country cannot be humiliated, and once again, belittled because certain beings will have decided to defile it.
Juan Branco, the lawyer at the heart of several controversies
The lawyer and political activist, classified on the far left and indicted for rape in 2021, has already been at the heart of several controversies: he has notably been accused of having participated in the dissemination of the Benjamin Griveaux video. to bring about his downfall as a lawyer for Piotr Pavlenski. He was also accused of an attempt to defend Salah Abdeslam, after a letter dated October 2016, in which he suggested that he “dismiss his counsel”, and gave him several recommendations for his defense.