PARIS (AFP)--Two senior executives at French energy company Electricite de France SA (EDF.FR) have been charged on suspicion of industrial espionage against the environmental group Greenpeace, a judicial official said Tuesday.
The EDF security executives were charged on March 24 with conspiring to hack into a computer system, the official said, confirming a report on the French Web site Mediapart.
Greenpeace France's former campaign director Yannick Jadot said investigators were probing a break-in on one of his computers, saying that EDF "appears clearly to be involved."
A computer expert is also charged in the case along with a private detective firm, Kargus Consultant, and a third unnamed person, the official said.
Both EDF executives deny knowingly hacking into a computer system, but the computer expert has admitted the charge.
EDF said Tuesday that an investigation had been opened for "fraudulent intrusion into computer systems," but said it was a victim of the detective firm Kargus.
The energy company has registered as a civil plaintiff in the case, a spokesman told AFP.
Greenpeace spearheaded a years-long campaign to block the construction of France's new generation nuclear reactor in Flamanville on the north coast.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 31, 2009 11:25 ET (15:25 GMT) | 
