TRIAL International filed a criminal complaint (“dénonciation pénale”) for complicity in pillage against Kolmar Group AG before the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) of Switzerland.
According to a joint report published by TRIAL International and Public Eye on 2 March 2020, the Zug-based trading company had purchased smuggled gasoil from Libya.
The investigation conducted by TRIAL International and Public Eye retraced the transnational network of subsidized gasoil smuggling from Libya.
The fuel was diverted from Libyan tanks with the complicity of an armed group, transhipped from Libyan fishing boats to larger vessels chartered by two Maltese businessmen in international waters, and finally transported to Malta.
This is where the name of Kolmar Group AG appears: according to the investigation, the Swiss trader purchased more than 50,000 tonnes of gasoil stored in tanks of the Maltese capital between 2014 and 2015.
“There were a significant number of indicators, all of which were in the red, that should have deterred Kolmar from carrying out these transactions. We believe that the evidence gathered warrant an investigation by the Office of the Attorney General to determine whether Kolmar willfully ignored such signals. If so, the company may have been complicit in a war crime“, said Philip Grant, TRIAL International’s Executive Director.