PRETORIA, June 20. /TASS/. A court in Mali has opened a case over the government’s complaint accusing several employees of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) of espionage, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Tuesday.

According to the agency, the case is being handled by a prosecutor specializing in "terrorism and transnational crime." The lawsuit emphasizes that employees of the UN mission, while investigating the events in Moura in March 2022, were complicit in the crimes. The authorities accuse the UN workers of espionage, "harming the morale of the army or air force, use of false documents and harming external state security."

The Malian government filed a complaint after the publication of a report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) accusing the Malian army of involvement in the execution of civilians during an anti-terrorist operation in the Moura region. Information about the events in Moura was provided to the OHCHR by MINUSMA employees.

The Malian authorities have rejected the OHCHR report and its conclusions. They also accused the OHCHR of bias and MINUSMA of using data illegally obtained from satellites without the knowledge of the Malian side. Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop said that that the UN peacekeepers had failed to ensure the country’s security.

MINUSMA was established in the spring of 2013 by a UN Security Council resolution to help Malian authorities strengthen security in the country. It currently has more than 15,000 employees. More than 280 mission’s employees have been killed in Mali since 2013.