French magistrate to investigate Britain over BSE
government in the next few weeks to substantiate claims that the
Thatcher government ...
A French magistrate is to seek documentary evidence from the UK government in the next few weeks to substantiate claims that the Thatcher government ``criminally negligent'' in allowing Mad Cow Disease to spread to the Continent, the Independent newspaper reports. The attempt by the French judiciary to gain access to British government documents, some of which have already been examined and published by the Phillips inquiry, is likely to provoke a diplomatic row between the two countries. The investigation follows a complaint against unnamed French, British and EU officials, brought last November by the families of three French victims of new-variant CJD, the human form of BSE. Legal sources said that Judge Marie-Odile Bertella-Geffroy, an experienced magistrate who led the inquiry into the AIDS contamination of French blood banks in the 80's will pursue her investigation in London and Brussels as well as Paris.
