Ismail Al Khazmi case before the UN Human Rights Committee

The Advocacy Center – TRIAL (ACT) and the organisation Al-Karama for Human Rights, representing Ismail Al Khazmi’s father, lodged an individual complaint against Libya before the United Nations Human Rights Committee in November 2008.

It is the fourth individual communication brought by the ACT and Al-Karama against Libya.

Ismail Al Khazmi was arrested by officials of the State Internal Security Agency on 17 June 2006 and taken away to an unknown destination. Despite numerous attempts, his family was unable to obtain any information about his fate or whereabouts.

He was secretly detained in Asseka Prison in Tripoli, without being brought before a court, afforded any type of judicial recourse or allowed any contact with his family or a lawyer. He was repeatedly tortured (beaten and suspended from the ceiling), and following an especially severe incident on 29 June 2006, he was taken away from the prison, unconscious, to an unknown location.

His family was informed of his death on 1 May 2007. The father’s demands for information on the circumstances of his son’s death were refused by the authorities, as well as subsequent requests for an autopsy. An attempted investigation was blocked by the executive official in charge at the Ministry of Interior.

The Human Rights Committee is requested to declare that Libya violated the fundamental rights of Ismail Al Khazmi, as well as his father’s, and that, as a result, redress should be granted. An investigation into the circumstances of the alleged violation and steps to bring to justice those responsible should also be undertaken.

For more information on this case, see here.