CAT/C/46/D/419/2010
The facts as submitted by the complainant
2.1
The complainant’s brother, Djamel Ktiti, was arrested on 14 August 2009 in the port
of Tangiers, Morocco, by the Moroccan police, following a request by the International
Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) pursuant to an international arrest warrant issued by
the Algerian judiciary on 19 April 2009.1 The arrest warrant was issued after a certain
M.K., arrested on 7 August 2008 in Algeria for possession of cannabis resin, had mentioned
the name Djamel Ktiti during interrogation. According to M.K.’s brother, who had visited
him in prison, M.K. had been tortured and ill-treated while in police custody in order to
extract a confession and learn the names of possible accomplices involved in marijuana
trafficking between Algeria and France, where M.K. has his permanent home. It was then
that he gave, among others, the name of Djamel Ktiti who lives in the same neighbourhood
as him in the city of Saint Etienne, France.
2.2
According to statements by M.K.’s family, he was beaten at the Algerian border,
then held captive naked in a cell for two days, where he was tortured. His torturers beat him
round the head and on the rest of his body. He was also electrocuted. He was tied to a chair,
suffocated and forced to swallow water in an attempt to drown him. He was then
sodomized with a bottle. When his family visited him in prison, they say he had a black
eye, his brow and lips were split and he was covered in bruises (on his arms, legs and back).
The purpose of the torture was to force him to confess to the acts of which he was accused
and to reveal the names of his accomplices. During a telephone conversation with ACAT in
April 2010, M.K.’s family confirmed that he had been savagely tortured following his
arrest, but did not wish to put it in writing for fear of reprisals against him by the Algerian
authorities, since he had not yet been tried.
2.3
Following his arrest, Djamel Ktiti was held in police custody until 15 August 2009,
then brought before the Crown Prosecutor of the court of first instance in Tangiers, who
informed him that he had been arrested under an international arrest warrant issued by
Algeria. The Prosecutor then ordered pretrial detention at Tangiers prison pending his
transfer to the Salé prison where Djamel Ktiti remains in custody. On 7 October 2009, the
Supreme Court of Morocco handed down decision No. 913/1, authorizing Djamel Ktiti’s
extradition to Algeria. On 14 January 2010, his lawyers appealed against the decision
before the same court, on grounds of irregularities in the arrest warrant, in particular
numerous errors as to Djamel Ktiti’s civil status. On 7 April 2010, the Supreme Court
dismissed the appeal against the extradition order.
2.4
According to information obtained by the French Consulate in Algeria from the
Algerian Ministry of Justice, despite Djamel Ktiti’s arrest and the authorization granted by
Morocco for his extradition to Algeria, the Court in Constantine had allegedly tried him in
absentia on 28 January 2010 and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Despite a request by
the French Consulate in Algiers, the Algerian authorities refuse to send a copy of the
judgement, on the grounds that a judgement rendered in absentia can only be given to the
convicted party himself.
2.5
Djamel Ktiti’s family has contacted the Moroccan and French authorities on
numerous occasions. They have written to the French Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, the President of the Republic, and the Consulate and Embassy of France in
Rabat. The family have also written to the King of Morocco and the Minister of Justice.
1
GE.11-43864
The arrest warrant was issued by the investigating judge from the second chamber of the specialized
jurisdiction at the Court of Constantine, Algeria, on the charge of “forming an organized gang for the
unlawful export of narcotics”, an act punishable under articles 17 and 19 of the Code for the
Prevention and Punishment of the Use and Unlawful Trafficking of Narcotics and Psychotropic
Substances (25 December 2004), and liable to life imprisonment.
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