French court rejects Chernobyl case vs ex-ministers

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

French court rejects Chernobyl case vs ex-ministers

PARIS, June 16 (Reuters) - A French court has rejected a complaint 
against three ex-cabinet ministers accused of failing to warn the 
public about the dangers of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, judicial 
sources said on Friday. 

In the first such case in France, Yohann Van Waeyenberghe, 31, from 
the Champagne regional capital Reims, had claimed his thyroid cancer 
was caused by fallout in eastern France from the disaster at the 
Ukrainian nuclear plant in April 1986. 

The sources said the Court of Justice of the Republic ruled on 
Thursday that documents presented by the plaintiff to back his case 
did not establish scientific evidence of a link between the fallout 
and his disease. 

The complaint had aimed to have the then Interior Minister Charles 
Pasqua, Health Minister Michele Barzach and Environment Minister 
Alain Carignon tried by the Court of Justice of the Republic. 

Van Waeyenberghe asked the three politicians to recognise they had 
not issued explicit warnings of the dangers of the radioactive cloud 
which swept across much of eastern and western Europe from the 
explosion at one of Chernobyl's reactors. 

Soviet officials originally tried to play down the seriousness of the 
disaster, which has been linked to the deaths of thousands of people 
in Ukraine. 

France's Court of Justice of the Republic exists solely to try 
serving or past members of government for offences committed while in 
office. Last year it acquitted former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius 
on charges of knowingly allowing AIDS-tainted blood to be used for 
transfusions. 

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