Court upholds appeal in case of murdered official

The General Court will now rule on compensation owed to four children of European Commission official murdered in Morocco.

The EU’s General Court today (10 July) upheld an appeal by the family of a European Commission official who was murdered in Morocco, a move that could lead to the Commission paying out millions in compensation.

Alessandro Missir Mamachi di Lusignano and his wife were killed in 2006. His father argues that the Commission should pay out nearly €6 million for failing to ensure the security of his son and his family. The Commission has already provided the family with compensation of nearly €500,000 and an allowance for Missir Mamachi di Lusignano’s children.

In 2011, the Civil Service Tribunal agreed with the plaintiff that the Commission had failed to take sufficient security measures to protect the family and had fallen short of its own standards in that respect. But that Tribunal considered that the family had already been adequately compensated. After finding erros in the Civil Service Tribunal’s reasoning, General Court will now assess the claim – meaning that eight years after the murder took place the case rolls on.

The murder took place in September 2006, just three weeks after the Italian-Belgian official had arrived in Rabat to work as a diplomatic and political adviser.

The Commission placed Missir Mamachi di Lusignano and his four children, the youngest of whom was four, in rented accommodation. One evening a burglar entered the house and, after being surprised by the occupants, stabbed to death Missir Mamachi di Lusignano and his wife, Ariane Lagasse de Locht.

The four children, who witnessed the double murder, were placed in their grandfather’s custody.

Missir Mamachi di Lusignano had spent 15 years at the Commission, including as a negotiator on Turkey’s application to join the EU.

The Commission paid out a statutory sum of nearly €500,000 to the children and gave them benefits worth around €8,000 a month. In 2008, Siim Kallas, then the European commissioner for administration, increased this to a monthly sum of €9,800.

The murdered official’s father, Livio Missir Mamachi di Lusignano, himself a former Commission official, argues that the Commission should pay €4m in compensation to reflect the salary his son could have earned had he continued to work at the Commission. He is also seeking compensation of €1.3m for the children to repair the harm caused by witnessing the murder.

The killer, Karim Zimach, was arrested the day after the murder. After admitting to the crime, he was sentenced to death (although Morocco has not carried out executions since 1993). The Commission brought a civil suit against Zimach, who was condemned to pay 1 dirham to the European Union in “symbolic compensation”.

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