CAT/C/21/D/110/1998
page 5
inadmissible, together with the precautionary measure requested. In addition,
the transfer to Peru took place by surprise, since the date was not
communicated in advance either to the author or to her counsel.
5.2
The Supreme Court decision did not refer at all to the content of the
reports submitted by the defence, but did refer at length to the opinion in
favour of extradition issued by the Attorney-General of the Republic. The
decision also did not refer to the provisional measures requested by the
Committee, even though they were invoked by the defence. Only the dissenting
judge referred to those measures, also noting that there were no grounds for
convicting the author of the charges against her, that conditions in Peru did
not guarantee due process and that international organizations had stated
their views on flagrant human rights violations in Peru. As an argument
against the opinion of the Supreme Court, the author also referred to the
political nature of the offences with which she was charged in Peru.
5.3
The author said that neither she nor her counsel had received any reply
in respect of the application for asylum, contrary to what the Minister for
Foreign Affairs had stated when questioned by the Chamber of Deputies'
Standing Committee on Domestic Policy. According to what he said, the
Minister had informed the author, in a letter dated 27 March 1998, that the
application for asylum did not contain evidence of political persecution and
that the final decision lay with the Supreme Court.
5.4
He said that the State party had ratified the 1951 Convention relating
to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of
Refugees, which provided that States had an obligation to set up the necessary
machinery for their implementation. There were, however, no procedures or
authorities in the State party to guarantee that asylum seekers would be
guaranteed that right. Moreover, the Executive authorities of the State party
had said that they could take a decision on asylum only after the
Supreme Court had ruled on extradition. That argument was wrong, however,
because asylum and extradition are two different and autonomous legal
institutions.
5.5
The author reported to the Committee that, following her extradition,
she was sentenced in Peru to 25 years' imprisonment on 10 August 1998, after a
trial without proper guarantees. At present, she is being held in a maximum
security prison, where, inter alia, she is confined to her cell for the first
year (23 hours in her cell and 1 hour outside each day) and can receive family
visits in a visiting room for only one hour a week.
5.6
The author recognizes that States and the international community are
entitled to take action to combat terrorism. However, such action cannot be
carried out in breach of the rule of law and international human rights
standards. The right not to be returned to a country where a person's life,
liberty and integrity are threatened would be seriously jeopardized if the
requesting State had only to claim that there was a charge of terrorism
against the person wanted for extradition. Such a situation is even worse if
the accusation is made on the basis of national anti-terrorist legislation,
with open-ended criminal penalties, broad definitions of “terrorist acts” and
judicial systems of doubtful independence.