CAT/C/30/D/219/2002 page 3 1.3 By note verbale of 8 November 2002, the State party submitted its observations on the admissibility and merits of the complaint; it also asked the Committee to withdraw its request for interim measures, pursuant to rule 108, paragraph 7, of the Committee’s rules of procedure. In his comments, dated 9 December 2002, counsel asked the Committee to maintain its request for interim measures, pending a final decision on the complaint. On 6 January 2003, the Committee, through its Special Rapporteur, decided to withdraw its request for interim measures. Facts 2.1 In 1993, the complainant worked as a language teacher in Barcelona, where she became involved with one Benjamin Ramos Vega, a Spanish national. During that time, the complainant and Mr. Ramos Vega both rented apartments in Barcelona, one at calle Padilla, rented on 21 April 1993 in Mr. Ramos Vega’s name, and one at calle Aragon, rented on 11 August 1993 in the complainant’s name and for the period of one year. According to counsel, the complainant had returned to Germany by October 1993. 2.2 On 28 April 1994, Felipe San Epifanio, a convicted member of the commando “Barcelona” of the Basque terrorist organization “Euskadi ta Askatasuna” (ETA), was arrested by Spanish police in Barcelona. The judgement of the Audiencia Nacional, dated 24 September 1997, sentencing him and other ETA members to prison terms, states that, upon his arrest, Mr. San Epifanio was thrown to the floor by several policemen after he had drawn a gun, thereby causing him minor injuries which reportedly healed within two weeks. Based on his testimony, the police searched the apartment at calle Padilla1 on 28 April 1994, confiscating firearms and explosives stored by the commando. Subsequent to this search, Mr. Ramos Vega left Spain for Germany. 2.3 The Juzgado Central de Instrucción No. 4 de Madrid issued an arrest warrant, dated 23 May 1994, against both the complainant and Mr. Ramos Vega under suspicion of ETA collaboration as well as possession of firearms and explosives. A writ was issued on 6 February 1995 by the same examining judge indicting the complainant and Mr. Ramos Vega of the above offences for having rented “under their name, the apartments at the streets Padilla and Aragon, respectively, places which served as a refuge and for the hiding of arms and explosives, which the members of the commando had at their disposition for carrying out their actions”.2 2.4 On 10 March 1995, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office initiated criminal proceedings against the complainant, following a request by the Spanish Ministry of Justice. However, the German authorities decided to discontinue proceedings on 23 November 1998, in the absence of a reasonable suspicion of an offence punishable under German law. In a letter to the Spanish authorities, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office stated that the apartment at calle Padilla, where the firearms and explosives had been found, had not been rented by the complainant but by Mr. Ramos Vega, while only a bottle filled with lead sulphide - which is not used for the production of explosives - had been found in the complainant’s apartment at calle Aragon. 2.5 Subsequent to Mr. Ramos Vega’s extradition to Spain in 1996, the Audiencia Nacional, by judgement of 24 September 1997, convicted him of collaboration with an armed group and falsification of licence plates in relation with terrorist activities (“con aggravate de relation con activities terrorists”), sentencing him to two terms of imprisonment, one of seven years and the

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