Dibouti: Widow’s Hunt for Killer Angers Key French Ally

ELISABETH BORREL was at her desk in the late summer sun in Provence last week. But the tranquil scene surrounding the blonde French magistrate belies her dogged pursuit of justice over many years in a mysterious murder that has poisoned relations between France and a key former colony in Africa. 

The murdered man was her husband judge Bernard Borrel. Twelve years ago, on October 19, 1995, the body of the 39-year-old was found half burnt at the foot of a ravine 50 miles from the town of Djibouti on the Red Sea coast of east Africa. He was clad only in a T-shirt and underpants.

When the body was found the Djibouti authorities said the judge, who was working as a consultant in the justice ministry, had committed suicide.

French investigators concurred and at first Borrel accepted their findings. But gradually her mind was filled with doubts. She embarked on a long battle to seek the truth. She found French authorities under the former president Jacques Chirac had erected a wall of silence around the affair. But her tenacity was slowly rewarded.

She forced a reexamination of the case, including an exhumation of her husband’s body, which revealed that he had indeed been murdered. The judge, a devoted family man with two children, was found to have damage to his skull consistent with a gunshot to the head and two different inflammable liquids had been used to set fire to his body. “It would have been a very serious case of suicide, indeed, if he had been able to kill himself in that way,” said his widow.

The case was reopened and soon a motive emerged too. Borrel had been investigating a drug and gunrunning ring involving top officials. A former bodyguard with the Djibouti presidency came forward to reveal that he had been a witness to a conversation between senior Djibouti officials at which the “death of the meddling judge” was discussed.

One of the officials he named was the former security chief Ismael Omar Guelleh, now president of the tiny republic. He denies any role in the French judge’s death and is furious with France at this turn of events.

Elisabeth Borrel, 50, believes that French officials under Chirac acquiesced in attempts to hide the truth in order to protect French interests in Africa. Djibouti is the home of France’s biggest overseas military base. With the “war on terror” its significance has grown immensely. Today it is a base for American marines fighting Al-Qaeda in the Horn of Africa as well as a bastion of the French military.

Last October, confronted by the new evidence, a French judge ordered arrest warrants to be issued for Djibouti’s public prosecutor and the head of the secret service. A judge also sought to question Guelleh, but as a serving head of state he cannot be forced to testify under French law.

Since Chirac’s departure from the Elysée the French investigation has gathered momentum. In June Borrel, who has accused Chirac of “treason” for allegedly helping the Djibouti government in a cover-up, met Chirac’s successor, Nicolas Sarkozy.

The new French president promised to help her find the truth and assured her that all classified material about the case would be released.

There followed raids on the homes in Paris and southern France of Michel de Bonnecorse, who had been Chirac’s former presidential adviser on Africa. The judges investigating the case confiscated a notebook.

Meanwhile, tempers are running high in Djibouti, which exploded in an angry display of anti-French feeling last weekend. Tens of thousands marched through the streets shouting slogans denouncing France’s “racist justice system” and Sarkozy. “Don’t touch my president,” they yelled. “Shame on you, Sarkozy.”

Borrel said she was confident that justice will prevail. But for her dogged determination the inquiry, and the rift with France, might never have happened.

Jon Swain

Timesonline

© Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd.