Movement for a Socialist Future

A trial date has been set for a 54-year-old Italian anthropologist, Franco La Cecla, and two Frenchmen, including a Libération journalist, whose complaints prevented the forceful deportation of a Congolese migrant to Senegal in an Air Horizon charter flight on which he was embarked on 15 December 2004 in Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

They will face charges in Bobigny on 26 May 2005 for: "having prevented the departure of the Air Horizon flight RN 322 from Paris to Dakar, encouraging passengers to get a person who had not been admitted into the [French] national terroritory and his escort to disembark, contravening security regulations and take-off procedures, causing a delay of 4 hours and 9 minutes" carrying a maximum prison sentence of five years.

La Cecla was seated in the aeroplane's penultimate row, in front of the migrant and the two policemen who were escorting him. The migrant was reportedly crying, shouting and struggling to get up. His face was smashed against La Cecla's seat, his head was grabbed and pushed to the floor, and at one point, a glove was placed in his mouth to quieten him down.

Nonetheless, the migrant continued to scream and struggle, so he was also slapped. Some travellers complained, and La Cecla and two others alerted the captain, asking to be let off if the problem persisted. The captain ordered the policemen accompanying the migrant to leave the plane, which they did, to cheers by the flight's passengers. Shortly afterwards, La Cecla and the other two passengers who asked to be let off the flight were arrested, held for 19 hours, questioned and had their fingerprints taken.

This is not the first time that passengers objecting to the deportation of migrants in their flights end up facing trials as a result of their actions in France. On 2 September 2004, four passengers were acquitted after appearing in court facing charges of "obstructing the circulation of an aircraft and provoking disobedience [to figures of public authority]" in relation to a failed deportation attempt in a flight to Bamako (Mali) on 21 July 2004. The trial also saw the French airline Air France taking part as a plaintiff, claiming 10,000 Euros in damages and interests. The court found that no one could be individually found guilty for the events leading to the charges on both counts.

Two more trials in relation to failed deportation attempts started on 19 October and 3 November 2004 in Bobigny, the courtroom whose jurisdiction includes Charles de Gaulle airport. In the context of forced deportations on flights, it must be noted that they have sometimes led to the death of migrants who were being removed from France: in Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport on 30 December 2002, the 52-year-old Argentinean Ricardo Barrientos died on an Air France flight after he was restrained by the police officers who were escorting him; a 24-year-old Somali, Mariame Getu Hagos died during his attempted deportation to South Africa (also on an Air France flight) on 16 January 2003; in August 1991 Arumum Sivasampu Esan, a rejected Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seeker, died during the second attempt to deport him to Colombo from France.
22 February 2005