Jean-Louis Bruguière
Encyclopedia
Jean-Louis Bruguière was the leading French investigating magistrate in charge of counter-terrorism
affairs. He was appointed in 2004 vice-president of the Paris Court of Serious Claims (Tribunal de Grande Instance
). He has garnered controversy for various acts, including the indictment of Rwandan president Paul Kagame
for the assassination
in 1994 of Juvenal Habyarimana
. Washington Post journalist Dana Priest
has cited him as saying that he had in the past ordered the arrest of more than 500 suspects, some with the assistance of US authorities. According to the investigative reporter, who described the workings of Alliance Base
, a CTIC
joint counter-terrorist operations center, involving the DGSE, the CIA and other foreign intelligence agencies, Bruguière declared that "[he had] good connections with the CIA and FBI." Bruguière has since temporarily left his judicial functions to dedicate himself to politics, joining Nicolas Sarkozy
's Union for a Popular Movement
(UMP) conservative party. However, he was appointed by the European Union
at the US Department of Treasury to oversee the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program
.
often referred to as Sciences Po and took part in the May 1968 protests. He continued his education at the École Nationale de la Magistrature. Appointed to Évreux
, he made himself known through an affair involving illegal vehicle registration cards by naming the police director as the culprit. Appointed to Paris in 1976, he began an attack on local pimps (in particular the Madame Claude
network), eventually having to work under police protection.
In the 1982 Bruguière declared accused Japanese cannibal Issei Sagawa
unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity and Sagawa was extradited from France to Japan where he was eventually released.
Following street gunfire in 1982, Bruguière turned himself towards anti-terrorism, expanding his network and targeting in particular the far-left group Action Directe. In 1986 an anti-terrorism division was formed in Paris. A year later his apartment was targeted in a grenade attack; Bruguière, however, continued his fight. In 1994, he tracked down and captured one of the world's most wanted terrorists
, Carlos (the Jackal).
Possibly his biggest case (in terms of number of people involved) was that of UTA Flight 772
which was sabotaged over the Sahara Desert in 1989 with the loss of 170 lives. Bruguière was instrumental in having six Libyans prosecuted in Paris
and convicted in absentia
. However, in the 2001 book "Manipulations Africaines", he was accused by the French journalist Pierre Péan
of having deliberately ignored evidence pointing to Lebanon
, Syria
and Iran
in order to put the blame on Libya
.
Bruguière counselled Italian senator Paolo Guzzanti
(Forza Italia
), in charge of the Mitrokhin Commission
, endorsing the old thesis, once supported by the CIA, according to which the Soviet Union was behind Mehmet Ali Agca
's 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II
. The Mitrokhin Commission has been discredited following a manipulation by a network to defame Prime minister Romano Prodi
and other political opponents of Berlusconi, by claiming they worked for the KGB
. The network included Mario Scaramella
, arrested in December 2006, the head of SISMI
Nicolò Pollari
, n°2 of SISMI Marco Mancini
(both indicted in the Imam Rapito affair
), as well as Robert Seldon Lady
, CIA station chief in Milan, also indicted in the Imam Rapito affair.
He was called as a witness in May 2007 by the defendants of a trial involving members suspected to have provided logistical support to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group
(GICM), involved in the 2003 Casablanca bombings
. Bruguière had been in charge of the investigations concerning this case, and the defendants' lawyer questioned his methods.
of then-Rwandan President, Juvenal Habyarimana
and his counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira
of Burundi
, was made public on 17 November 2006. Brugière has indicted Paul Kagame
, current President of Rwanda and leader of the FPR
, claiming that he deliberately assassinated Habyarimana in order to provoke the genocide
against his own ethnic group, in order to take power cynically . Bruguière's thesis has been very controversial, and criticized by Le Figaro
, Libération
and other newspapers. His investigations are based on two oral sources, Abdul Ruzibiza
, a former member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front
who lives in exile, and Paul Barril
, who was in charge of François Mitterrand
's wiretap section at the Elysee Palace
, and has had an obscure role in Rwanda before 1994. Le Figaro points the international dimension of the character and his contacts with intelligence agents, both in Russia and in the United States, cited justice colleagues of Bruguière, who criticize him for "favorizing the raison d'Etat over the law."
for the presidential election
. He then presented himself as candidate under the joint appellation Union for a Popular Majority (UMP, Sarkozy's party)-Parti Radical Valoisien, in the third circonscription of the Lot-et-Garonne
department, for the June 2007 legislative elections
. Bruguière was defeated by his Socialist
competitor, Jérôme Cahuzac
, gaining only 41,71% at the second round against 52,29% for Cahuzac.
Counter-terrorism
Counter-terrorism is the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, militaries, police departments and corporations adopt to prevent or in response to terrorist threats and/or acts, both real and imputed.The tactic of terrorism is available to insurgents and governments...
affairs. He was appointed in 2004 vice-president of the Paris Court of Serious Claims (Tribunal de Grande Instance
Justice in France
In France, judges are considered civil servants exercising one of the sovereign powers of the state, and, accordingly, only French citizens are eligible for judgeship. France's independent judiciary enjoys special statutory protection from the executive branch...
). He has garnered controversy for various acts, including the indictment of Rwandan president Paul Kagame
Paul Kagame
Paul Kagame is the sixth and current President of the Republic of Rwanda. He rose to prominence as the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front , whose victory over the incumbent government in July 1994 effectively ended the Rwandan genocide...
for the assassination
Assassination of Habyarimana and Ntaryamira
The assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on the evening of April 6, 1994, was the catalyst for the Rwandan Genocide. The airplane carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda....
in 1994 of Juvenal Habyarimana
Juvénal Habyarimana
Juvénal Habyarimana was the third President of the Republic of Rwanda, the post he held longer than any other president to date, from 1973 until 1994. During his 20-year rule he favored his own ethnic group, the Hutus, and supported the Hutu majority in neighboring Burundi against the Tutsi...
. Washington Post journalist Dana Priest
Dana Priest
Dana Priest is an American author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Priest has worked almost 20 years for The Washington Post. As one of the Post's specialists on National Security she has written many articles on the United States' "War on terror." In 2006 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Beat...
has cited him as saying that he had in the past ordered the arrest of more than 500 suspects, some with the assistance of US authorities. According to the investigative reporter, who described the workings of Alliance Base
Alliance Base
Alliance Base was the cover name for a secret Western Counterterrorist Intelligence Center that existed between 2002 and 2009 in Paris. The existence of CTICs were first revealed by Dana Priest in a November 17, 2005 Washington Post article, while she referred to the Alliance Base in a July 2,...
, a CTIC
Counterterrorist Intelligence Center
A Counterterrorist Intelligence Center is, according to a Washington Post November 18, 2005 front page article by Dana Priest, a counterterrorist operations center run jointly by the CIA and foreign intelligence services as part of the US "War on Terror" .- Description of CTIC :According to Dana...
joint counter-terrorist operations center, involving the DGSE, the CIA and other foreign intelligence agencies, Bruguière declared that "[he had] good connections with the CIA and FBI." Bruguière has since temporarily left his judicial functions to dedicate himself to politics, joining Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal 10 days earlier....
's Union for a Popular Movement
Union for a Popular Movement
The Union for a Popular Movement is a centre-right political party in France, and one of the two major contemporary political parties in the country along with the center-left Socialist Party...
(UMP) conservative party. However, he was appointed by the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
at the US Department of Treasury to oversee the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program
Terrorist Finance Tracking Program
The Terrorist Finance Tracking Program is a United States government program to access the SWIFT transaction database revealed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times in June 2006. It is part of the Bush administration's "Global War on Terrorism"...
.
Biography
The latest in a long line of magistrates (eleven generations), Bruguière studied at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de ParisInstitut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris
The Institut d'études politiques de Paris , simply referred to as Sciences Po , is a public research and higher education institution in Paris, France, specialised in the social sciences. It has the status of grand établissement, which allows its admissions process to be highly selective...
often referred to as Sciences Po and took part in the May 1968 protests. He continued his education at the École Nationale de la Magistrature. Appointed to Évreux
Évreux
Évreux is a commune in the Eure department, of which it is the capital, in Haute Normandie in northern France.-History:In late Antiquity, the town, attested in the fourth century CE, was named Mediolanum Aulercorum, "the central town of the Aulerci", the Gallic tribe then inhabiting the area...
, he made himself known through an affair involving illegal vehicle registration cards by naming the police director as the culprit. Appointed to Paris in 1976, he began an attack on local pimps (in particular the Madame Claude
Madame Claude
Fernande Grudet , also known as Madame Claude, is the most famous French procurer. In the 1960s she was the head of a French network of call girls who worked especially for dignitaries and civil servants.-Biography:...
network), eventually having to work under police protection.
In the 1982 Bruguière declared accused Japanese cannibal Issei Sagawa
Issei Sagawa
is a Japanese man who in 1981 murdered and cannibalized a Dutch woman named Renée Hartevelt. After his release, he became a minor celebrity in Japan and made a living through the public's interest in his crime.-Early life:...
unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity and Sagawa was extradited from France to Japan where he was eventually released.
Following street gunfire in 1982, Bruguière turned himself towards anti-terrorism, expanding his network and targeting in particular the far-left group Action Directe. In 1986 an anti-terrorism division was formed in Paris. A year later his apartment was targeted in a grenade attack; Bruguière, however, continued his fight. In 1994, he tracked down and captured one of the world's most wanted terrorists
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
, Carlos (the Jackal).
Possibly his biggest case (in terms of number of people involved) was that of UTA Flight 772
UTA Flight 772
UTA Flight 772 of the French airline Union des Transports Aériens was a scheduled flight operating from Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo, via N'Djamena in Chad, to Paris CDG airport in France....
which was sabotaged over the Sahara Desert in 1989 with the loss of 170 lives. Bruguière was instrumental in having six Libyans prosecuted in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and convicted in absentia
In absentia
In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...
. However, in the 2001 book "Manipulations Africaines", he was accused by the French journalist Pierre Péan
Pierre Péan
Pierre Péan is a renowned French investigative journalist and author of many books concerned with political scandals.-Books, investigations and controversies:...
of having deliberately ignored evidence pointing to Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
and Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
in order to put the blame on Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
.
Bruguière counselled Italian senator Paolo Guzzanti
Paolo Guzzanti
Paolo Guzzanti is an Italian journalist and politician. He was previously a member of the Italian Socialist Party.-Biography:Born in Rome, he is the nephew of Elio Guzzanti and father to actors Corrado, Sabina and Caterina....
(Forza Italia
Forza Italia
Forza Italia was a liberal-conservative, Christian democratic, and liberal political party in Italy, with a large social democratic minority, that was led by Silvio Berlusconi, four times Prime Minister of Italy....
), in charge of the Mitrokhin Commission
Italian Mitrokhin Commission
The Mitrokhin Commission was a parliamentary commission set up in 2002 by the Italian Parliament, then led by Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing coalition, the Casa delle Libertà, and presided by senator Paolo Guzzanti...
, endorsing the old thesis, once supported by the CIA, according to which the Soviet Union was behind Mehmet Ali Agca
Mehmet Ali Agca
Mehmet Ali Ağca is a Turkish assassin who murdered left-wing journalist Abdi İpekçi on February 1, 1979 and later shot and wounded Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981, after escaping from a Turkish prison. After serving 19 years of imprisonment in Italy, he was deported to Turkey, where he served a...
's 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II
1981 Pope John Paul II assassination attempt
The first attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II took place on Wednesday, May 13, 1981, in St. Peter's Square at Vatican City. The Pope was shot and critically wounded by Mehmet Ali Ağca while he was entering the square. The Pope was struck 4 times, and suffered severe blood loss. Ağca was...
. The Mitrokhin Commission has been discredited following a manipulation by a network to defame Prime minister Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...
and other political opponents of Berlusconi, by claiming they worked for the KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
. The network included Mario Scaramella
Mario Scaramella
Mario Scaramella is an Italian lawyer, self-styled security consultant and nuclear waste expert who came to international prominence in 2006 in connection with the poisoning of the ex-FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko...
, arrested in December 2006, the head of SISMI
SISMI
Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....
Nicolò Pollari
Nicolò Pollari
Nicolò Pollari is a general of the Italian Guardia di Finanza, who was the former head of Italy's national military intelligence agency, or SISMI, until his resignation on 20 November 2006.He was born in Caltanissetta, Sicily....
, n°2 of SISMI Marco Mancini
Marco Mancini
Marco Mancini was the second-highest ranking officer of Sismi, the military intelligence agency of Italy until his 5 July 2006 arrest for his participation in the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr...
(both indicted in the Imam Rapito affair
Imam Rapito affair
The Abu Omar Case refers to the abduction and transfer to Egypt of the Imam of Milan Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar...
), as well as Robert Seldon Lady
Robert Seldon Lady
Robert Seldon Lady is a convicted kidnapper and a noted member of the U.S...
, CIA station chief in Milan, also indicted in the Imam Rapito affair.
He was called as a witness in May 2007 by the defendants of a trial involving members suspected to have provided logistical support to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group
Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group
The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group or Moroccan Islamic Fighting Group is a Sunni Islamist terrorist organization affiliated with al-Qaeda. It is sometimes referred to as GICM after its French name Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain...
(GICM), involved in the 2003 Casablanca bombings
2003 Casablanca bombings
The 2003 Casablanca bombings were a series of suicide bombings on May 16, 2003, in Casablanca, Morocco. The attacks were the deadliest terrorist attacks in the country's history. 45 people were killed as a result of these attacks...
. Bruguière had been in charge of the investigations concerning this case, and the defendants' lawyer questioned his methods.
Rwanda
His controversial report into the April 1994 assassinationAssassination of Habyarimana and Ntaryamira
The assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on the evening of April 6, 1994, was the catalyst for the Rwandan Genocide. The airplane carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda....
of then-Rwandan President, Juvenal Habyarimana
Juvénal Habyarimana
Juvénal Habyarimana was the third President of the Republic of Rwanda, the post he held longer than any other president to date, from 1973 until 1994. During his 20-year rule he favored his own ethnic group, the Hutus, and supported the Hutu majority in neighboring Burundi against the Tutsi...
and his counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira
Cyprien Ntaryamira
Cyprien Ntaryamira , was President of Burundi from 5 February 1994 until his death when his plane was shot down on 6 April 1994.-Biography:...
of Burundi
Burundi
Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi , is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its capital is Bujumbura...
, was made public on 17 November 2006. Brugière has indicted Paul Kagame
Paul Kagame
Paul Kagame is the sixth and current President of the Republic of Rwanda. He rose to prominence as the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front , whose victory over the incumbent government in July 1994 effectively ended the Rwandan genocide...
, current President of Rwanda and leader of the FPR
Rwandan Patriotic Front
The Rwandan Patriotic Front abbreviated as RPF is the current ruling political party of Rwanda, led by President Paul Kagame. It governs in a coalition with other parties...
, claiming that he deliberately assassinated Habyarimana in order to provoke the genocide
Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people in the small East African nation of Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days through mid-July, over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate...
against his own ethnic group, in order to take power cynically . Bruguière's thesis has been very controversial, and criticized by Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
, Libération
Libération
Libération is a French daily newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Originally a leftist newspaper, it has undergone a number of shifts during the 1980s and 1990s...
and other newspapers. His investigations are based on two oral sources, Abdul Ruzibiza
Abdul Ruzibiza
Abdul Joshua Ruzibiza was a former member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front who at one time claimed to be part of a group that carried out the assassination of President of Rwanda Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira in April 1994, an event that marked the beginning of the...
, a former member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front
Rwandan Patriotic Front
The Rwandan Patriotic Front abbreviated as RPF is the current ruling political party of Rwanda, led by President Paul Kagame. It governs in a coalition with other parties...
who lives in exile, and Paul Barril
Paul Barril
Paul Barril is a former officer of the French Gendarmerie Nationale. He authored several books about his military career, touching sensitive political subjects of the Mitterrand era.Barril was a gendarme until 1995...
, who was in charge of François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...
's wiretap section at the Elysee Palace
Élysée Palace
The Élysée Palace is the official residence of the President of the French Republic, containing his office, and is where the Council of Ministers meets. It is located near the Champs-Élysées in Paris....
, and has had an obscure role in Rwanda before 1994. Le Figaro points the international dimension of the character and his contacts with intelligence agents, both in Russia and in the United States, cited justice colleagues of Bruguière, who criticize him for "favorizing the raison d'Etat over the law."
Political career
Bruguière left his civil function as a magistrate and provided his support, in March 2007, to the right-wing candidate Nicolas SarkozyNicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal 10 days earlier....
for the presidential election
French presidential election, 2007
The 2007 French presidential election, the ninth of the Fifth French Republic was held to elect the successor to Jacques Chirac as president of France for a five-year term.The winner, decided on 5 and 6 May 2007, was Nicolas Sarkozy...
. He then presented himself as candidate under the joint appellation Union for a Popular Majority (UMP, Sarkozy's party)-Parti Radical Valoisien, in the third circonscription of the Lot-et-Garonne
Lot-et-Garonne
Lot-et-Garonne is a department in the southwest of France named after the Lot and Garonne rivers.-History:Lot-et-Garonne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
department, for the June 2007 legislative elections
French legislative election, 2007
The French legislative elections took place on 10 June and 17 June 2007 to elect the 13th National Assembly of the Fifth Republic, a few weeks after the French presidential election run-off on 6 May. 7,639 candidates stood for 577 seats, including France's overseas possessions...
. Bruguière was defeated by his Socialist
Socialist Party (France)
The Socialist Party is a social-democratic political party in France and the largest party of the French centre-left. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in France, along with the center-right Union for a Popular Movement...
competitor, Jérôme Cahuzac
Jérôme Cahuzac
Jérôme Cahuzac is a member of the National Assembly of France. He represents the Lot-et-Garonne department, and is a member of the Socialiste, radical, citoyen et divers gauche.-References:...
, gaining only 41,71% at the second round against 52,29% for Cahuzac.