The trial in the fine coal case began on Monday 18 September 2023 at the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Ouagadougou. But the defence has asked for the trial to be postponed due to the judicial recess. This request did not go down well with the prosecutor, who was quick to express his dissatisfaction.
“This is the nth time that we have come to court with a referral, and a feeling that the case will not be tried, but it will be tried. The fact that the case is on judicial recess is not a valid reason for sending it back. It is not provided for in any text”, the prosecutor declared. However, the prosecutor assured the court that the case would go to trial despite the many attempts to postpone it.
The prosecutor is not the only one who has not digested the decision to refer the case. The State’s lawyers reluctantly accepted the decision to transfer the case.
“It’s a reason that for us is slight, but the lawyers (editor’s note: of certain defendants) not being there, it is ill-timed and the court would be embarrassed to judge people prosecuted in the absence of their lawyers. This was the reason for postponing the hearing rather than the alleged judicial recess”, said André Ouédraogo, the State’s lawyer.
For him, although lawyers and magistrates were taking a rest, hearings were being held for urgent situations and matters of patriotic urgency. There was nothing to prevent the case from going to trial.
“To our cost, we agreed to this postponement so that the case could be tried in the most satisfactory conditions possible. Of course, all defendants are entitled to have their counsel present when the case comes to trial. As such, we have no choice but to wait calmly for the date of 3 October 2023, and we hope that this time the case will go to trial”, he added.
He also explains that the more time that passes, the greater the risk that the Burkinabe state will not receive sufficient compensation or will not receive compensation at all. In his view, the mining companies are exploiting an exhaustible resource. And this is the fourth year since the procedure began. So the more time goes by, the more likely it is that the resource will be exhausted, and the State is likely to end up with a court decision, but the mine no longer has any assets or is no longer even present. It may still be present, but it no longer has sufficient resources to face the sentence that may be handed down against it.
“What’s more, the trial may start, but we don’t know when it will end, perhaps in 3 years. That’s why we’re worried, and why we keep insisting that the case be retained and tried as soon as possible”, concluded André Ouédraogo.
As a reminder, the fine coal affair came to light in December 2019 when the judicial authorities seized a convoy from the mining company IAMGOLD ESSAKANE SA. They accused the mine of exporting more gold to Canada than declared in fine coal.
In response to Essakane’s protests and in order to obtain more information on the condition of the goods seized, experts were called in to carry out expert appraisals.
Following the hearings, the companies IAMGOLD ESSAKANE SA, Bolloré Transports et Logistics SA Burkina Faso and 12 other people will be prosecuted in court. As a result, the first trial, which took place on 7 August 2019, has been postponed to a later date.
Indeed, ESSAKANE challenged these expert reports. New experts were appointed. They submitted their report in July 2022. Each party had 45 days to submit its observations. However, in the meantime, ESSAKANE initiated discussions with a view to settling the case, which would put an end to the legal proceedings. Pending the settlement, the case was scheduled for 20 July 2023.
On 20 July 2023, the trial was adjourned until September 2023, because, according to Prosper Farama, the civil party’s lawyer, “not all the conditions have been met to try this case today”. As for the expert’s report, he said that it had not yet been completed and that the results showed that the fine coal was not fine coal.
However, Moumouny Kopiho, I AM GOLD ESSAKANE’s lawyer, claims that the appraisal is not yet complete because ESSAKANE has commissioned another appraisal.
The case was referred today to the general docket and scheduled for 18 September 2023.
In the end, however, it was postponed again until 3 October 2023 due to a judicial recess.
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