Torture and death of Mr. Djilali HANAFI in November 1998

12.02.2016 ( Last modified: 15.09.2016 )

The Case

In April 2008, TRIAL filed an individual complaint on behalf of Sahraoui Hanafi, who was acting for his brother, Djilali Hanafi, to the UN Committee against Torture. Djilali Hanafi was arrested and detained for two days at the police headquarters (Dark Al Watani) in Mechraa Sfa (Algeria). Whilst being detained, he was subject to serious acts of torture that resulted in his death. His death occurred in the context of mass atrocities committed by the various Algerian security forces between 1992 and 1998.

Djilali Hanafi was arrested, most likely at his place of work, on 1st November 1998. His family was only informed the following day by a fellow prisoner who had been released. When he went to the police station, the father of the victim was refused information on the status and reason why his son was being detained. In contrast, during the evening of 3 November 1998, when the father returned to the police station with one of his sons, the officers released Djilali Hanafi immediately. He had obviously been subjected to extremely severe abuse. He was taken home and died of his injuries overnight.

During his agony, the victim confirmed that he had been heavily beaten. Some of his fellow prisoners also confirmed that the Mechraa Sfa police carried out systematic physical abuse, that Djilali Hanafi had been interrogated under torture, and that after the beatings, he showed clear signs of physical distress. In spite of all this, he never received medical assistance.

On 4 November 1998, the morning after Djilali Hanafi died, police officers went to ask his relatives for their livret de famille [official family record book], so that the chief police officer could record his death. On the same day, as the family was preparing to bury Djilali Hanafi, the order was given to take the body to hospital for an autopsy, which would have been requested by the prosecutor of Tiaret in view of a death certificate indicating his “suspicious death”. The process came to a sudden unexplained halt and the family has never had access to the autopsy report.

Members of the family have contacted all the relevant institutions to ensure that justice is done, including the civilian and military prosecutors territorial jurisdiction. Their efforts have never been followed up. Even their application for social welfare benefit for the death of a relative during the period of “national tragedy” was unsuccessful, on the grounds that, according to the authorities, Djilali Hanafi died of “natural causes”.

The only investigation which has ever officially been completed was carried out eight years after the event by the same police service responsible for the death of the victim. However, the family has not been able to get hold of the file. To date, none of the people involved in the torture, who are incidentally easy to identify, have been questioned.

Moreover, since the promulgation of Regulation No 6/01 in February 2006, implemented into the National Charter for Peace and Reconciliation, relatives of the victim face a legal prohibition on using any form of juridical proceedings at the risk of receiving a prison sentence. Furthermore, any Algerian court is legally required to remove such cases from court.

The author of communication asked the Committee against Torture to recognise that Djilali Hanifi was a victim of torture and that Algeria has violated Articles 1, 2 § 1,11,12,13 and 14 of the UN Convention Against Torture.

 

Background

The facts of this case lie within the violent context that reigned in Algeria in the 1990s. Under the guise of fighting terrorism, the government engaged in serious mass abuses of power. There were tens of thousands of cases of summary executions, disappearances, arbitrary arrests, torture and other violations carried out by the state security services between 1992 and 1998 (the period of “national tragedy” according to the term coined by the government).

However, the state has never admitted (even less compensated for) the consequences of such violations. The state has never refuted these crimes. On the contrary, it has led to political impunity, which has been institutionalised since the promulgation of the Regulation implementing the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation in February 2006.

 

The decision

In its June 2011 decision, the Committee against Torture found Algeria guilty of torture inflicted on Mr. Hanafi, and that the demise of the victim was the direct outcome of such torture. The Committee furthermore noted that no impartial or significant criminal enquiry was ever opened up to shed light on the death of the plaintiff’s husband considering that 12 years had elapsed since the events, a fact not contested by the State party. The absence of any such enquiry is even more inexplicable since the death certificate issued in April 2006 made mention of “death under suspicious circumstances”.

The Committee held that Algeria had violated Articles 1, 2 § 1, 11, 12, 13 and 14 of the Convention against Torture. Furthermore, the Committee denounced as being “unacceptable” and incompatible with Article 22 of the Convention the practice consisting of cross examining former fellow prisoners as well as the family of the deceased in the hope that they would withdraw their testimony given beforehand to the Committee.

Based on this decision, Algeria was obligated to initiate an impartial inquiry into the events in question with the aim of initiating judicial proceedings against those responsible for the treatment inflicted upon the victim. Algeria was given 90 days in which to inform the Committee of the measures it had taken, including reparations awarded to the wife of the deceased.

 

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