As French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies prepares to resume work on its multibillion-dollar offshore gas project in northern Mozambique, it faces a criminal complaint back home over its role in funding an army unit accused of torturing and executing dozens of civilians in 2021. The complaint was filed with France’s National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor by Berlin-based legal nonprofit the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). It alleges that TotalEnergies knew of human rights allegations leveled at Mozambique’s elite Joint Task Force (JTF), but continued paying it to secure its facilities. “With this complaint, we have requested that the specialized prosecutor opens an investigation into the potential complicity of TotalEnergies,” Chloé Bailey, a senior legal adviser with the ECCHR, told Mongabay. The French prosecutor’s office has the authority to issue indictments that could include criminal charges against both the company and individual TotalEnergies executives. The ECCHR’s complaint focuses on events that took place in 2021 around the town of Palma, near TotalEnergies’ onshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities. In March 2021, jihadist militia al-Shabaab captured Palma in a shocking attack that displaced tens of thousands of people. Last year, U.S.-based outlet Politico published an investigation alleging that after recapturing the town, soldiers with the JTF rounded up civilians from nearby villages, accused them of ties to al-Shabaab, and imprisoned them in shipping containers for months. According to Politico, at least 97 detainees were executed or died inside the containers, based on a door-to-door survey of the villages. Between 2020…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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