by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
'Big Six' energy giant EDF has been found guilty of spying on environmental campaigners Greenpeace.
On November 10, 2011 judge Isabelle Prévost-Desprez, ruling in the case near Paris in France, sentenced two EDF employees and a third man to prison.
Madam Judge Prévost-Desprez also fined the French state-owned business EDF (Energie de France) 1.5m euros and ordered it to pay half a million euros in damages to Greenpeace.
During the trial the court that heard EDF had been hacking into the hard drives of Greenpeace computers and had placed a 'Trojan Horse' in the hard drive of one, so it could access private emails and documents being written by Greenpeace.
Could this be the use of a French government “State Trojan” much like the “Federal Trojan” used and employed by the German governments.
As a result EDF executive Pierre-Paul François was sentenced to three years imprisonment, with 30 months suspended and another employee, Pascal Durieux, received the same sentence, with two years suspended and a 10,000 euro fine for commissioning the spying operation.
The judge also handed down a guilty verdict in the case of Thierry Lorho, the head of Kargus, a company employed by EDF to hack into the computers of Greenpeace. He was sentenced to three years in jail with a further two years suspended as well as a 4,000 euro fine.
Outside the court Greenpeace's executive director for France, Adelaide Colin, said: “The fine and damages awarded to Greenpeace send a strong message to the nuclear industry that no one is above the law.
“This case should send a signal to any country considering building reactors with EDF that the company can't be trusted. "Instead of working with the nuclear industry, countries should invest in clean, safe sources of renewable electricity.”
EDF's UK offices declined to comment on the verdict while no one was immediately available for comment at its French counterpart. Surprise not!
We can but wonder what shenanigans EDF and others get up to on a daily basis to discredit environmental activists and one can also but wonder whether they are not also part of the lobby that finances the Nimbies when they object to wind farms.
Not that we can blame, or maybe we can, EDF for it but a case of some years back in Berkshire showed clearly that vested interests were bankrolling the anti-movement in the case of a wind farm planned on some farmer's field.
As long as energy giants and vested interest groups can get away with things renewable energy sources will have an uphill struggle. This verdict, on the other hand, may, hopefully, send a message that they will be found out and held responsible and that a spell in prison could, in fact, result.
When are we going to jail the bankers?
© 2011
