Dutch public prosecutors have refused to open a formal criminal investigation into four major international tobacco companies on charges of attempted murder or manslaughter, saying there is too little chance of a conviction, according to www.theguardian.com.

Anne Marie van Veen, a Dutch lung cancer patient, and an Amsterdam lawyer, Bénédicte Ficq, filed a criminal complaint in 2016 accusing major tobacco companies of intentionally aiming to turn smokers into addicts and of causing “deliberate damage to public health”.

It alleged the multinationals were guilty of “attempted murder, alternatively attempted manslaughter and/or attempted and premeditated severe physical abuse and/or attempted and premeditated injuring of health”. It also accused the companies of forgery, arguing that they had “for years declared on tobacco product packaging levels of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide”.