CAT/C/38/D/300/2006
page 3
1.3 The Committee was informed by counsel that the complainant had been deported to
Tunisia on 7 August 2006.
The facts as presented by the complainant
2.1 In 1985, the complainant left Tunisia for Belgium, where he pursued his studies.
On 26 November 2001, he was arrested in northern France, following the assassination of
Ahmed Shah Massoud on 9 September 2001 in Afghanistan. Massoud, the leader of the
Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan, was assassinated by Abdessatar Dahmane and
Bouraoui El Ouaer (who also died in the attack). The trial of the complainant and his alleged
accomplices began in March 2005 before the Paris Criminal Court. The complainant stood
accused of having organized the departure of volunteers for Pakistan and Afghanistan. His role
was confined to procuring false papers such as visas and passports. He denies any knowledge of
the plans of his friend Abdessatar Dahmane, from whom he had heard nothing in the months
leading up to Massoud’s assassination.
2.2 On 17 May 2005, the Paris Criminal Court sentenced the complainant to six years’
imprisonment for “criminal conspiracy in connection with a terrorist enterprise” and to
deprivation of his civil, civic and family rights for a period of five years. He received a remission
of sentence for good conduct. He held dual French-Tunisian nationality, which he had acquired
in 2000 after marrying a French national in 1995. Pursuant to a decree of 19 July 2006, he was
stripped of his French nationality, and he was served the same day with a ministerial deportation
order, motivated by “the imperative requirements of State security and public safety”. On
22 July 2006, he was released from Nantes prison and taken straight to the Mesnil-Amelot
administrative detention centre.
2.3 On 25 July 2006, the complainant filed an application for asylum in France. This
application was reviewed under the urgent procedure that allows the French Office for the
Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) to take a decision within 96 hours. On
28 July 2006, OFPRA rejected the asylum application. On the same day, the complainant lodged
an appeal against this decision with the Refugee Appeals Board. This appeal does not have
suspensive effect.
2.4 In an appeal filed on 24 July 2006, the complainant asked the interim relief judge at the
Paris Administrative Court to take interim measures pending a review of the legality of the
ministerial deportation order. In a ruling dated 25 July 2006, this request was rejected. In an
appeal lodged on 26 July 2006, the complainant requested annulment of the ministerial
deportation order. In a ruling dated 4 August 2006, the interim relief judge rejected the request
for a stay of execution of the decision. In an appeal lodged on 1 August 2006, the complainant
requested annulment of the decision establishing Tunisia as the destination country. In a ruling
dated 5 August 2006, the interim relief judge rejected the request for a stay of execution of the
decision, and the complainant was finally deported to Tunisia on 7 August 2006.
2.5 On 17 October 2006, the Refugee Appeals Board turned down the complainant’s appeal,
having due regard to the nature and gravity of the acts committed which, in the Board’s view,
justify his exclusion from the status of refugee pursuant to article 1 (F) of the 1951 Geneva
Convention. However, the Board noted that the complainant “could have had reason to fear that