CAT/C/23/D/93/1997
page 3
2.2
On arrival in France on 6 June 1992, the author applied to the French Office for the
Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) for refugee status; his application was
denied on 11 August 1992, and the denial was upheld by the Refugee Appeal Board (CRR)
on 17 December 1992.
2.3
The author then requested a review of his file, stating that there had been some new
factors, viz that certain members of his family had allegedly suffered severe ill-treatment,1 and
provided copies of documents showing that he was still a wanted man. Meanwhile, by an order
dated 15 April 1993, the Paris Prefect of Police decided that he should be deported.
2.4
By decision dated 23 April 1993, OFPRA rejected K.N.’s fresh application on the
grounds that the alleged new developments did not establish that his alleged fears were justified
since his statements were not backed up by any convincing evidence. That decision was
confirmed by CRR on 28 September 1993 on the same grounds, at a time when the current case
law did not accept that considerations that could have been attached to the initial application
were admissible as new factors. The author maintains, however, that the new factors were
relevant enough for the Paris Administrative Tribunal to annul the first deportation order, in a
ruling dated 5 May 1993 following the rejection of his initial application.
2.5
The communication reveals that a second deportation order was issued, but the author
states that he never knew of its existence, probably because it was sent to him at his previous
address. He affirms that, since he was not notified of that second order, an appeal against it had
become inadmissible.
2.6
On 12 March 1994, the author was arrested after an identity check and transferred to the
detention area of the Paris Law Courts. A hearing was arranged immediately and, in a
judgement dated 14 March 1994, the Paris Correctional Court sentenced him to a three-year
ban from French territory for theft and for being in France illegally. The charge of theft was
for carrying an identity card which, according to the author, his brother-in-law had lent him.
On 20 March 1994, K.N. was put aboard an aircraft bound for Brussels and Kinshasa.
2.7
The author states that, upon his arrival in Zaire, he was detained after passing through
immigration control at the airport. There he was allegedly subjected to a stern interrogation
carried out by an army officer who withheld the papers relating to his application for asylum, in
particular the OFPRA and CRR decisions.
2.8
K.N. says he was imprisoned without trial in Makala prison until January 1995. Held in
an overcrowded cell, deprived of food, clothing and hygiene, he was constrained to drink water
mixed with urine and excrement from the cell, and was often beaten with truncheons once or
twice a day, also being subjected to various kinds of ill-treatment and torture. He was also made
to perform forced labour. Some months later, a prison guard to whom his uncle had given
money moved him to a different cell and secured for him a transfer docket to the central
hospital in Kinshasa where he was to obtain medical attention.2 Arriving at the hospital
on 19 January 1995, the author met his uncle who first took him by car to a friend’s house and
then helped him to cross the frontier into the Congo by boat. He allegedly arrived back in France
in March 1995.