2023-11-21 18:31:00
Natagora had decided to take legal action once morest Infrabel (rail network manager), its subsidiary Tuc Rail (acting as delegated project owner) and a subcontractor. The backfilling work took place between October and December 2020. A judicial investigation was opened into the disturbance of protected species and destruction of the sites.
The case now arrives before the Neufchâteau criminal court; with on one side Natagora, as civil party; and on the other Tuc Rail and the subcontracting company Stevens Mobix as defendants. Infrabel obtained a dismissal of the case from the council chambers.
“After the embankments, we no longer observed any vipers”
For Natagora, the companies acted without exemption.
“We wanted to push through,” says Me Alain Lebrun, Natagora’s lawyer. The association says there were between 60 and 100 vipers at the construction site, where it had made more than 100 field visits.
“All these efforts were reduced to nothing and following the embankments, we no longer observed vipers, also declares the Natagora council. The DNF proposed to reintroduce vipers but there is no breeding of vipers, so in practice this is not possible.”
The association is claiming €25,000 in compensation for its damage for its work which would have been reduced to nothing, and €300,000 for environmental damage.
The prosecution requests acquittal
But for there to be damage, there must still be a breach and even pushing the argument further, proof that there were vipers on the site before the embankment.
Because Natagora is the only one to want to attribute responsibility to the companies involved on this site.
The Luxembourg public prosecutor’s office had requested the dismissal of the case from the council chamber. Logically, the public prosecutor now demands acquittal in court.
“We have a report of embankment work 1 m wide and 3.7 km long; and that’s all we have, notes the substitute, Julien Docquier. We took for granted a whole series of things that we cannot prove. On the only statement in the file, it is mentioned that there are no vipers. What regarding the before/following comparison. The conditional remains too conditional.”
Faced with this analysis, the representative of the prosecution therefore sticks to the basics of the Law: without proof, there is no element to convict.
“Natagora provided her own proof”
Tuc Rail argues for its part that technically, it was not an entrepreneur. The presence of vipers had been reported but with the aim of protecting workers.
“There was an agreement governing the way things should happen and this was respected,” argues Me Laurent Kennes, lawyer for Tuc Rail. The role of a viper expert, both close to Natagora and the DNF, is also criticized.
“Natagora provided its own proof,” slips Me Pierre Moërynck, second counsel for the company, for whom acquittal is requested.
Just like for the subcontractor Mobix. His lawyer, Me Audrey Zians, saw no further evidence and took up a question, also raised by the prosecution, regarding embankments which might have been the work of another company on a neighboring site.
The judgment will be delivered on December 19.
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